Five Strengths

Translations of
pañcabalāni
English the five powers,
the five strengths
Pali pañcabalāni
Sanskrit पञ्चबलानि (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)
Glossary of Buddhism
37
DHAMMĀ of
ENLIGHTENMENT
  4
satipaṭṭhāna		  
  4
Efforts		 4
Bases		  
5
Faculties		 5
Powers
  7
Factors		   
  8
Path Factors		  

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.

  1. Faith/Conviction (saddhā bala) - controls doubt
  2. Energy/Effort/Persistence (viriya bala) – controls laziness
  3. Mindfulness (sati bala) - controls heedlessness
  4. Concentration (samādhi bala) - controls distraction
  5. Wisdom/Discernment (paññā bala) – controls ignorance

See also

  • Bodhipakkhiyadhamma - lists the 37 qualities conducive to Enlightenment, which includes the Five Powers.
  • Five Wisdoms
  • Indriya - "faculty," includes extended discussion of the Five Spiritual Faculties.

Notes

  1. ↑ 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.
  2. ↑ 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


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