Five Strengths
| Translations of pañcabalāni | |
|---|---|
| English | the five powers, the five strengths |
| Sanskrit | पञ्चबलानि (pañcabalāni) |
| Pali | pañcabalāni |
| Chinese | 五力 (Pinyin: wǔ lì) |
| Japanese | 五力 (Rōmaji: goriki) |
| Korean | 오력 (RR: olyeog) |
| Tibetan | སྟོབས་ལྔའི་མིང་ལ་ (Wylie: stobs lnga'i ming la) |
| Vietnamese | ngũ lực |
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The Five Strengths (Sanskrit, Pali: pañcabalāni) in Buddhism are faith, energy, 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/Conviction (saddhā bala) - controls doubt
- Energy/Effort/Persistence (viriya bala) – controls laziness
- Mindfulness (sati bala) - controls heedlessness
- Concentration (samādhi bala) - controls distraction
- Wisdom/Discernment (paññā bala) – controls ignorance
See also
- Bodhipakkhiyadhamma - lists the 37 qualities conducive to Enlightenment, which includes the Five Powers.
- Five Wisdoms
- Index of Buddhism-related articles
- Indriya - "faculty," includes extended discussion of the Five Spiritual Faculties.
- Secular Buddhism
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[permanent dead link]; 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[permanent dead link]; 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
- Monier-Williams, Monier (1899, 1964). A Sanskrit–English Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press. An on-line search engine for the MWD is available from the "U. of Cologne" at http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/monier/.
- Rhys Davids, T.W. & William Stede (eds.) (1921-5). The Pali Text Society’s Pali–English Dictionary. Chipstead: Pali Text Society. An on-line search engine for the PED is available from "Chicago U." at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/.
External links
- The Way of Wisdom - The Five Spiritual Faculties, by Edward Conze
- The Five Spiritual Powers, Dharma talk by Sarah Doering
- Indriyas from Encyclopedia of Spiritual Knowledge
- The Secret of 5 Powers, Comic Book - Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh
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