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sources; i.e. "I'm insecure." Versus "I grew up in poverty." (Seligman 50) Thinking of bad things as internally caused not only indicates pessimism but also low self esteem, whereas placing fault externally is actually more optimistic and self validating.

Conversely, when good things happen, our tendency to credit either ourselves or others indicates healthy optimism or pessimism, respectively, as "people who believe they cause good things tend to like themselves better than people who believe good things come from other people or circumstances." (Seligman 50)

In summary, a person with an optimistic explanatory style would tend to interpret good events as permanent, pervasive, and personal and to interpret bad events as temporary, specific, and externally caused.

By contrast, a person with a pessimistic explanatory style would tend to interpret good events as temporary, specific, and externally caused and to interpret bad events as permanent, pervasive and personally wrought.

But what does all this have to do with Buddhism, you may ask? Good question. Where Seligman's book provided a simple formula for immediate application, Buddhism, as explained by Thich Nhat Hanh in The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, provides a deeper explanation, an almost meta understanding of the same concepts. When discussing the Three Dharma Seals, the Buddha "offered us impermanence, nonself, interbeing, and emptiness to discover the true nature of reality." (Hanh 137)

In some senses, we can draw direct connections between the three areas of perception (permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization) and the Three Dharma Seals of impermanence (anitya), nonself (anatman), and nirvana. Indeed, Thich Nhat Hanh even uses near identical language to describe the nature of the first two seals, "From the point of view of time, we say impermanence', and from the point of view of space, we say nonself'." (Hanh 132) The comparisons stop matching up so neatly after that, but I believe the topics encompassed within The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching more than envelop those in Learned Optimism, taking us from mere practice and following of formula to a living understanding, to wisdom.

For when one applies the understanding gained from Buddhist teaching to the layer of action based upon optimist formulas, we then "stop discussing things and begin to realize the teachings in our own life, a moment comes when we realize that our life is the path, and we no longer rely merely on the forms of practice."

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