Five Strengths
The Five Strengths (Sanskrit, Pali: pañca bala) in Buddhism are faith, effort, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. They are one of the seven sets of "qualities conducive to enlightenment." They are parallel facets of the five "spiritual faculties."
Translation
Pañca (Sanskrit, Pali) means "five."[1] Bala (Sanskrit, Pali) means "power," "strength," "force."[2]
Exegesis
Faith and Wisdom balance each other, as do Energy and Concentration. The Five Faculties are ‘controlling' faculties because they control or master their opposites. The faculties and powers are two aspects of the same thing.
- Faith (saddha) - controls doubt
- Energy/Effort/Persistence (viriya) – controls laziness
- Mindfulness (sati); - controls heedlessness
- Concentration (samādhi) - controls distraction
- Wisdom/Discernment (pañña, prajña) – controls ignorance
Notes
- ^ See Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 387, entry for "Pañca," retrieved 2008-03-11 from "U. of Chicago" at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2:1:971.pali; and, Monier-Williams (1964), e.g., p. 579, entry "Pañcaka," retrieved 2008-03-11 from "U. of Cologne" at http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWScan/MWScanpdf/mw0578-paJcAGguri.pdf.
- ^ See Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 482, entry for "Bala," retrieved 2008-03-11 from "U. of Chicago" at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2:1:3245.pali; and, Monier-Williams (1964), p. 722, entry "Bala," retrieved 2008-03-11 from "U. of Cologne" at http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/serveimg.pl?file=/scans/MWScan/MWScanjpg/mw0722-barAsI.jpg.
References
See also
- Bodhipakkhiyadhamma - lists the 32 qualities conducive to Enlightenment, which includes the Five Powers.
- Indriya - "faculty," includes extended discussion of the Five Spiritual Faculties.
- Five Wisdoms
External links
