An Ethical Samādhi: Brahma-vihāra Meditation and the Flexible Early Buddhist Path
Mindfulness May 20, 2025 Eviatar Shulman 5 citations
Brahma-vihāra meditation in early Buddhism functions both as ethical cultivation and as a form of meditative concentration (samādhi), allowing the mind to reach a state of totality through love, compassion, empathic joy, and equanimity. These radically ethical states can perfect ethical practice and, at their best, be liberating. The early Buddhist path is flexible, not a single fixed route; practitioners can use Brahma-vihāra meditation in various ways according to their inclinations, sometimes as part of the path to liberation and sometimes not. This interpretation shows that samādhi can be ethical and ethics can be liberating.