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.
The author reflects on a personal intellectual journey that began with psychology's experimental and statistical focus, which felt shallow and failed to address deep questions about meaning, soul, or God. Studying Tibetan language, Buddhism, and Indian philosophy offered a more resonant framework. The author's research centers on consciousness, particularly through Pāli texts of the Theravāda tradition, examining how these texts relate philosophy to practice. The author argues that prevalent materialism is a dangerous form of nihilism, akin to what Indian philosophy would consider ominous, and contends that a discussion of consciousness freed from dogmatic materialism, while avoiding religious dogma, may help address societal ailments by re-centering first-person experience and meaning.