The Buddhist Path to Enlightenment (study)
by Dr Kala Acharya | 2016 | 118,883 words
This page relates ‘The Five Mental Powers (Pancabalani or Bala)—Introduction’ of the study on the Buddhist path to enlightenment. The Buddha was born in the Lumbini grove near the present-day border of India and Nepal in the 6th century B.C. He had achieved enlightenment at the age of thirty–five under the ‘Bodhi-tree’ at Buddha-Gaya. This study investigates the teachings after his Enlightenment which the Buddha decided to teach ‘out of compassion for beings’.
5. The Five Mental Powers (Pañcabalāni or Bala)—Introduction
Bala means power, strength or force; various powers of both temporal and spiritual character are found mentioned in the Buddhist texts.
Among the most important and of frequent occurrence are the five mental powers (pañcabalani); namely,
- mental power of faith (saddhābala),
- mental power of effort or energy (vīriyabala),
- mental power of mindfulness (satibala),
- mental power of concentration (samādhibala) and
- mental power of wisdom (paññābala).[1]
An explanation of these five powers in found in the Aṅguttara Nikāya. It says that faith is the belief in the Tathāgata, effort is striving to be rid of evil (akusala) and to cultivate good (kusala); in mindfulness one minds and remains oneself of things done and said long ago; concentration is to keep oneself aloof from sense-desires and to attain the four jhānas, while wisdom is to be wise as to the way of origin and cessation and to possess Aryan penetration of the way to the utter destruction of suffering.[2]
What distinguishes them from the corresponding five spiritual faculties (pañcindriya) is that they are unshakable by their opposites: the power of faith is unshakable by faithlessness (assaddha), effort by laziness (kosajja), mindfulness by forgetfulness (pamāda), concentration by distractedness (uddhacca), and wisdom by ignorance (avijjā). They represent, therefore, the aspect of firmness in the spiritual faculties.[3] But in the Saṃyutta Nikāya, we find these five powers being identified with the five faculties.
According to the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the power of faith becomes manifest in the four qualities of the stream-winner (sotāpanna), effort in the fourfold right effort (sammappadhāna), mindfulness in the four foundations of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna), and concentration in the four jhānas and wisdom in the full comprehension of the four noble truths.
The meaning of saddhābala is to be directly known as unshakenability with regard to the lack of faith, the meaning of vīriyabala as unshakeability with regard to idleness, the meaning of satibala as unshakeability with regard to heedlessness, the meaning of samādhi-bala as unshakeability with regard to excitement, the meaning of paññābala as unshakeability with regard to ignorance.[4]
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
DN II, p. 120; MN. II, p. 12
[2]:
AN 4, p. 3-4
[4]:
Patis I, p. 17