New stuff from E. Shulman: An Ethical Samādhi: Brahma-vihāra Meditation and the Flexible Early Buddhist Path

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I’ve just found a new paper on early Buddhism by E. Shulman.

Here is the Abstract:

This article offers a new interpretation of Brahma-vihāra meditation (BVM) in early Buddhism, positioning it between ethical cultivation and development of samādhi ; BVM can thereby perfect ethical practice by creating a comprehensive meditative state that is thoroughly ethical. The fact that the radically ethical states of mind of BVM are sometimes included in the path to liberation, while more commonly they are not, further affords an important understanding regarding the flexible nature of the early Buddhist path. This is not one path, two paths, or any other number of paths, but a flexible method that different practitioners can use in various ways, evoking its diverse potentials according to their personal inclinations and contexts. Within this dynamic structure, Brahma-vihāra meditations play two main roles: first, they allow a completion of ethical practice, bringing it to perfection through the divine attitudes of love (mettā ), compassion (karuṇā ), empathic joy (muditā ), and equanimity (upekkhā ). Second, these states of mind, in which the mind reaches a state of totality, serve as a form of samādhi , which can replace other types of meditative concentration, such as jhāna . At their best, these states can be liberating. This interpretation of BVM’s role improves our understanding of the early Buddhist path, and specifically of the manner in which it combines ethical cultivation with advanced meditation. Here, samādhi proves to be ethical, and ethics liberating.

In short, he wants to say that the Brahma-vihāras can be equal to jhāna, and in such case, in the best-case scenario, they can lead to the Nibbāna on their own. He argues against Vens. Anālayo and Dhammadinnā views, saying that the latter deprive the Brahma-vihāras of their unique salvific capability.

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A quick glance at the abstract shows a well constructed academic angle.
As such its likely to be of abstract interest to academics.

For those wanting to taste the dhamma its maybe not so useful. For instance:

Brahma-vihāra …
states of mind, in which the mind reaches a state of totality, serve as a form of samādhi, which can replace other types of meditative concentration, such as jhāna.

is either poorly worded or setting up a false dichotomy. It implies Brahma-vihāra are entirely distinct to jhana. If jhana is defined as in the EBT as the Four Rupa Jhana, then the Brahma-vihāra provide a means to access all four. Hopefully in the body of the article the nuances and interconnection are discussed, rather then falling into an intellectual divisive analysis.

Salvific? As in salvation of Christian theology? Why torture dhamma through the lens of a misappropriated dogma?

Academics who are Sangha are likely to have a more nuanced view. :anjal:

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The four ethical practices (mettā, karuṇā, muditā, upekkhā), which are Brahma-vihārā, appear very similar to the practice of ‘right thought’ (sammā saṅkappa ), one stage of the eightfold path, i.e. thought of detachment (nekkhamma saṅkappa ), thought of non-malice (abyāpāda saṅkappa ), and thought of non-harming (avihiṃsā saṅkappa ).

All four practices contain the word abyāpāda (abyāpajjha), which also is part of sammā saṅkappa .

So, thought of detachment (nekkhamma saṅkappa ), thought of non-malice (abyāpāda saṅkappa ), and thought of non-harming (avihiṃsā saṅkappa ) are essential for the practice of Brahma-vihārā.

Cf.: Defining the Brahmaviharas from Pali - Q & A - Discuss & Discover

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Going to read it asap :slight_smile:

On principle I’m sympathetic to this approach of a flexible-ish chart that can be combined in many ways. It’s all different fingers pointing at the moon. And samādhi is always understood as an entirely ethical/skilful state.

The 4BV are said to be practised alongside the awakening factors (SN 46.54), whose parallels to jhāna are undeniable—pītisambojjhaṅga = nirāmisā pīti (SN 46.3), which is defined as the first two jhānas (SN 36.31).

But more explicitly (AN 8.63), they—like the 4 satipaṭṭhānas—are spoken of as a samādhi to be practised with and without vitakka & vicāra, with and without pīti, with sukha, with upekkhā… Sounds too familiar hehe So in a way it doesn’t seem Shulman’s premise is too radical at first. Let me see where he takes this! Thanks for sharing the article.

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On principle I’m sympathetic to this approach of a flexible-ish chart that can be combined in many ways.

Yes, like many of Shulman’s ideas/theses, this one is very tempting, but what immediately jumps to mind is the stress the Buddha made on the well-structured and arranged path, the famous anupubbikathā. And yes, perhaps the Buddha could rearrange the training so it would fit the particular student, but can we, his followers, do that?.. Like many of Shulman’s theses, this one seems to me a bit half-baked, raw, not thoroughly thought-out…

I think you mean right, sammā-samādhi.

But the texts say that there is also micchā-samādhi:

There are some ascetics and brahmins who have wrong view, wrong thought, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness, and wrong immersion. If they lead the spiritual life, they can’t win the fruit, regardless of whether they make a wish,

Ye hi keci, bhūmija, samaṇā vā brāhmaṇā vā micchādiṭṭhino micchāsaṅkappā micchāvācā micchākammantā micchāājīvā micchāvāyāmā micchāsatī micchāsamādhino te āsañcepi karitvā brahmacariyaṁ caranti, abhabbā phalassa adhigamāya;

SuttaCentral

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Shulman’s article should be read in light of this piece by Aviran Ben-David, one of his students, to which it is heavily indebted: Ben-David’s basic premise is something along the lines of the cultivation of sīla itself engenders samādhi. Shulman’s point is predicated on that, I think.

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This is all over the suttas, but my impression is this doesn’t seem widely known for some reason.

It’s a little bit funny to see a core teaching of the Buddha phrased as some guy’s premise :stuck_out_tongue: (no disrespect on Ben-Davids or yourself intended!)

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Do you mean sīla as an absolutely essential part of developing samādhi (which does not appear to be at all controversial), or the development of samādhi with no other practice apart fromsīla?

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I mean the first, but I’m not sure the two alternatives you mention are that different?

I mean, someone who has really good sila will eventually need to go somewhere secluded and sit down and apply mindfulness in a way that’s conducive to samadhi.

But I guess my own understanding of the suttas is that sila actually produces samadhi for one who is willing to sit down and prioritize mindfulness, if that makes sense :slight_smile:

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Well, one does see headings like:

Though, the heading is somewhat click-bait, as the text does talk about the

ability to “aim” the four satipaṭṭhānas at the right place and thereby achieve all these beneficial results, including samādhi …

As you say:

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Well, that already departs from Shulman’s scholarly approach to the texts: that they are the creative outcome of the early generation(s) of Buddhists, not necessarily textual memories of teaching events. The texts recommend a gradual path, and there are various versions of this path because this flexibility is an accepted feature of the tradition – within certain parametres, of course. Elsewhere the texts speak of other formulations, etc. Disciples have always done this and we have the texts, not the Buddha.

But anyway, let’s not get into this methodological debate here now. TL;DR → Your “objection” is based on a view of what the texts are and how they evolved that is simply not shared by Shulman and other scholars.

PS: What vouches for this flexible & creative approach to Buddhist practice and textuality from the beginning, is the fact that this is what Buddhist have continued to do all throughout history: experiment with technique, rephrase the teachings, create new texts… (And this includes Theravāda countries, whose wealth of Buddhist literature is unknown because of the modernist reforms of the 19th century and onwards, that focused mostly on the suttas and their ancient commentaries against later, vernacular works.) But where all Christians read the Bible, by and large, all Jews the Torah, etc., not all Buddhists read the early texts.

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According to Choong Mun-keat (2024: pp. 94-104), the set of four Brahmaviharas (or the four immeasurables, i.e. mettā, karuṇā, muditā, and upekkhā) is an expanded version.

The main practice could be just one focus, mettā, which is also called mettā-vihāra, regarded as kullaka-vihāra, a ‘family-meditative state’ (but suññatā-vihāra is viewed as mahāpurisa-vihāra, the ‘meditative state of great men’).

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I think Ven. Aniga makes a good point here:

What exactly is the connection between sīla and samādhi? Is it that virtue aids or facilitates the development of mental composure1, in the way that a suitable diet contributes to an athlete’s top physical performance—a secondary factor that allows for better results with greater ease, or that prevents setbacks down the line?

It seems fairly common to think of meditation in that way, as an application of effort like an athlete or a musician learning to play an instrument.

I did not mean “sila is samadhi” in the same way as Ven. Aniga tho :slight_smile:

My hot take would be to place the application of effort like an athlete at the Right Effort part of the Noble Eightfold Path, but the effort is broadly cultivating wholesome mental states at the expense of unwholesome ones. But at some point the effort has to stop because it’s not possible to get really peaceful while also applying a bunch of effort :nerd_face:

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I think a problem is that the tradition has already done that, and there’s a clear lack of consensus on the specific instructions. :slight_smile:

I think it doesn’t really matter to a practitioner who takes the scriptures as a fallible companion but ignoring the problematic formulations of, let’s say EBT canon helps no one. Case in point, Brahmavihara meditations.

SN 41.7 actually gives us a way to untangle the mess:

“Householder, the limitless release of the heart, and the release of the heart through nothingness, and the release of the heart through emptiness, and the signless release of the heart: do these things differ in both meaning and phrasing? Or do they mean the same thing, and differ only in the phrasing?”

“Sir, there is a way in which these things differ in both meaning and phrasing. But there’s also a way in which they mean the same thing, and differ only in the phrasing.

So far, I’ve seen different suttas talking only about Jhanas, only about Arupas, Both Jhanas and Arupas, those 8 + cessation of perception, only brahmaviharas, brahmaviharas + arupas, and there’s also the three meditations: signless, uninclined, empty.

In all these suttas, sometimes only Jhana is enough to get nirvana. Sometimes all 8 are mentioned. Sometimes actual cessation experience is called the nirvana. Sometimes Arupa + Brahmaviharas lead to nirvana.

Sometimes, Brahmaviharas lead to more refined arupa meditations. Sometimes, Arupa meditations seem to lead to more refined releases of heart. The end of arupa is sometimes nothing, sometimes it’s own cessation attainment, sometimes the three (uninclined, signless, empty) releases of the heart before full liberation.

I didn’t really bother to find and link all these suttas, as most of the people here would know it to be true with their studies as well. And I’m not trying to write an academic article here. :stuck_out_tongue:

There are two ways to read into this plurality:

  • Historical Critical Perspective - This view would argue that the plurality of ideas and formulations is a result of layers of layers of editings through the ages. There’s obvious hints to support this view at least partially.
  • Plurality of the Path - This view would argue that for each practitioner, the exact mechanisms of their liberation is hard to diagnose (not the least being easy to predetermine) therefore the differences in exposition is a result of observing how different arahants achieved liberation differently.

I think the fine line is somewhere in the both.

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I’m a little surprised that, in this paper, Shulman does not refer to Gombrich’s What the Buddha Thought (2009: 75ff), of which the entire Chapter 6 is an argument that “the Buddha saw love and compassion as means to salvation — in his terms, to the attainment of nirvana.”

My claim is that, so far from teaching a path to salvation which did not include kindness and compassion — what Christians call ‘love’ or ‘charity’ — [the Buddha] actually preached that such positive feelings were themselves direct and effective means to the attainment of nirvana. This has, however, escaped notice, and his preaching on the subject has been misunderstood, because he expounded the teaching to brahmins by using their language. In so doing, he was but employing his normal technique of Skill in Means, but on this crucial occasion his own tradition unfortunately failed to understand his use of metaphor and took him literally, with disastrous consequences (Gombrich 2009: 78).

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“Salvific” could mean in this context “liberating,” as in “freeing oneself from dukkha and samsara.” Even so, I’ve never read in the suttas where practicing the brahmaviharas alone can take one to samadhi. We moderns often can’t accept the idea that maybe the Buddha got it right 2500 years ago.

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Well said. :anjal:

Would this sutta help?

Mettā sutta

1.1“Mendicants, you can expect … benefits when the heart’s release by love has been cultivated, developed, and practiced, made a vehicle and a basis, kept up, consolidated, and properly implemented.

.2.2 … Your mind quickly enters immersion. … tuvaṭaṁ cittaṁ samādhiyati

samādhiyati 1. pr. is calmed (for); becomes collected (for); becomes composed (for); becomes stable

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Hi Bernat!

Well, I disagree with the very first premise in your posting: that Shulman’s approach to the texts is scholarly. :slight_smile:

I don’t know if you have read these two papers by Ven. Anālayo:

‘Visions of the Buddha’: A Critical Reply

Understanding Early Buddhist Oral Narrative (p. 233)

They contain a devastating criticism of Shulman’s approach and theses.

In my mind, until Shulman resolves all the multiple problems indicated in these replies, he simply cannot (i.e., should not) continue, as if “nothing’s happened”. So far, he has merely ignored these multiple problems.

And I am not sure you understood my point. I said that, perhaps, the Buddha could have used the Brahmavihāras as a means to Enlightenment, but, as Vens. Anālayo and Dhammadinnā correctly indicated, nothing in the tradition corroborates this. Therefore, if even the Buddhist tradition does not remember how to do that and that that has ever been done at all, it is highly unlikely that this can ever be replicated. Therefore, for us, as practitioners, this possibility is… useless. Even if we imagine that Shulman and his students have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Buddha did teach Brahmavihāras as a way to Nibbāna, which they of course haven’t, this would be of no use except as a curious detail. So I doubt the very meaningfulness of Shulman’s purported “finding” for Buddhist scholarship (broadly understood). It, at best, says something about the Buddha’s own way of teaching, which has no repercussions for the Buddhists’ Path to Awakening.

PS: What vouches for this flexible & creative approach to Buddhist practice and textuality from the beginning, is the fact that this is what Buddhist have continued to do all throughout history:

Yes, it is a very important aspect of the study of the Buddhist tradition, and I am happy that scholars are are more aware of that now. However, regarding the canonical texts, I believe, Mark Allon’s assessment is correct:

Apart from the fabric of the texts themselves, that is, the very way in which they
have been constructed, further evidence for texts being memorized and transmitted
verbatim comes from numerous references within early Buddhist texts themselves
that describe the recitation and learning of texts, where it is hard to imagine that
fixed texts are not what is meant

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I’ve been digging through more examples to see precisely the wording on BvM:

Searching “Brahmaviharas leading to Nibbana”

In AN10.219:

When the liberation of mind by equanimity has been developed in this way, it leads to non-returning for a wise bhikkhu here who does not penetrate to a further liberation.

It seems consistently that BvM are always told as a gateway to non-return, rather than full extinguishment.

“A wise bhikkhu who does not penetrate to a further liberation” is also another interesting trope that’s repeated in suttas that deal with BvM, obviously implying that there are higher liberations than BvM.

It’s also interesting that BvM are mentioned in the suttas that deal with Brahmins.

From these all, I would conclude that BvM are a pre-buddhistic brahmanical meditative tradition, not really bad per-se either, so they’re not like say, alcohol, that Buddha should tell people to stay away from.

However, they’re also not quite the same thing as what he’s teaching, either. Therefore, he praises the good qualities of the practice, showing how it leads to even the lofty non-return, but he also wants to emphasise the different qualities of the practise he teaches.

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I’m quite perplexed at this. Why do you think Shulman’s approach is not scholarly? What is it, then? Theological? Practitioner-like? He is working within a scholarly ‘tradition’ of treating the nikāyas as a body of religious literature—I know you’ve read Gethin’s review article and his paper on Schemes of the Buddhist Path in the Nikāyas and Āgamas, and that’s one of the predecessors of Shulman’s points. Whether or not we agree with his conclusions, whether or not Anālayo’s critique of him is “devastating”, whether or not his work contains errors, none of this necessarily makes it non-academic… Anālayo’s work also receives critiques and contains mistakes: is it non-scholarly?

If we make a comparison, Biblical scholars who regard the gospels as a religious, literary creations do seem more academic to me than those who regard them as ‘the word of God’, which is a believer’s perspective. It’s an imperfect comparison like most are; but anyway, from certain approaches the point is not whether the historical Buddha himself practiced or taught this or that, but what the various texts say and, crucially, how do we interpret that and the differences found. Anālayo, Shulman & others have very different takes about how to do that—aren’t all of them scholarly?

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