Five Strengths

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."

Translations of
pañcabalāni
Englishthe five powers,
the five strengths
Sanskritपञ्चबलानि (pañcabalāni)
Palipañcabalāni
Chinese五力
(Pinyin: wǔ lì)
Japanese五力
(rōmaji: goriki)
Korean오력
(RR: olyeog)
Tibetanསྟོབས་ལྔའི་མིང་ལ་
(Wylie: stobs lnga'i ming la)
Vietnamesengũ lực
Glossary of Buddhism
37
DHAMMĀ of
ENLIGHTENMENT
  4
Efforts
4
Bases
 
5
Faculties
5
Powers
  7
Factors
  
  8
Path Factors
 

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

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%5B%5D; 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%5B%5D; 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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