Search results for: "The Five Faculties"
- The Five Faculties Confirmed… They will be confirmed when you gain the escape from them—seeing the elephant in the clearing corresponds to stream-entry—because that’s when the five faculties show how truly helpful they are. There was one point where the Buddha asked Ven. Sariputta, who at that point had become an arahant, “Do you believe that the five faculties lead to the deathless?” And …
- Dealing with the Hindrances… It’s in the list of the factors for awakening, it’s in the list for the five faculties, and the Buddha says that each of these lists has a particular mental quality that develops it. In the five faculties, concentration is developed by heedfulness. In the factors for awakening, it’s developed by appropriate attention. So let these two qualities provide some guidance …
- A Producer Mentality… The bliss of concentration, the bliss that comes with discernment, comes at the end of the five faculties, the end of the five strengths. In both cases, the list starts with conviction. The four bases of success start with desire. The noble eightfold path starts with right view and right resolve: right view about what’s going to cause suffering, what’s not going …
- Friends with the Breath, Friends with the Buddha… Apparently the lutes in those days had five strings, so the Buddha compared the five faculties to the five strings. The string that you tuned first was the persistence or the energy faculty. How much energy do you have right now? What are you capable of right now? Start there and then tune all the other faculties to that, in the same way that …
- The Best of a Bad Situation… What was he going to do? He said, “Here’s an opportunity to test the Buddha’s teachings—developing the five strengths, the five faculties, the seven factors for awakening. The Buddha has said, ‘The Dhamma is medicine.’ Well, here’s a chance to test it.” I remember the story of Ajaan Lee, walking into the forest for three days. He was going to …
- Looking for Happiness Inside… Sariputta, “Do you believe that by developing the five faculties of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment that they lead to the Deathless?” And Sariputta says, “No, I don’t believe that. I know.” Try to get to the point where you can say that, too.
- Commit & Reflect… If we apply this way of looking at the Dhamma—to, say, the five faculties—we see how this is so. You start out with conviction. You take as working hypothesis the principle that the Buddha really was awakened and you think about the lessons of his awakening, how they apply to you. When the Buddha talks about conviction, he’s talking about three …
- Look in the Mirror… Now, what’s interesting is the Buddha applies this analysis not only to unskillful mental states, but, ultimately, also to the path—as when he has you analyze the five faculties: Conviction has its allure, but it has its drawbacks. Persistence has its allure, but it has its drawbacks. The same with mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. Even these are things you have to gain …
- Potentials for Energy… In the five strengths or the five faculties, persistence comes after conviction. This goes hand in hand with desire. You want to find an end to suffering. You want to at least alleviate a lot of your suffering. And if you believe that the Buddha was awakened, and that he proved that human beings can do this, that gives focus to your desire—and …
- The Brightness of Life… There’s a way he formulates the path in terms of the five faculties: conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. He says you don’t really know these five faculties until you’ve seen their origination, their passing away, their allure, their drawbacks, and the escape from them. So even the path is something we’re ultimately going to be putting aside. That’s …
- Grasping the Snake… You’ve got the four establishings of mindfulness, the four right exertions, the four bases for success, the five strengths, the five faculties, the seven factors for awakening, the noble eightfold path. They’re almost all exclusively lists of mental qualities. Now, that kind of view, you can put to use. You can look at the lists and learn some important things about how …
- Honest & Observant… Sariputta, “Are you convinced that the five faculties lead to the deathless?” And Sariputta said, “No, I’m not convinced. I know.” Which means, of course, that when you’re working from conviction, it’s because you don’t know. But this is where we all have to start out: We all start from ignorance. The Buddha himself, before he gained his awakening, was …
- Questioning Your Conviction… It’s the first of the five strengths, the first of the five faculties. When the Buddha compares the practice to building a fortress at the edge of a frontier, conviction is the foundation post. You have to understand a little bit about construction practices in Asia to understand what that means. Whenever you build a building here in the West, you lay a …
- Discernment Fosters Concentration… lot of mental qualities that go into training the mind, and the Buddha has several lists. In some of the lists, concentration fosters discernment; in other lists, discernment fosters concentration. The five faculties, five strengths: Those are lists that put the concentration first. You start with a certain conviction in the Buddha’s teachings and you get to work, get the mind to settle …
- In Heedfulness We Trust… After all, the five strengths, the five faculties, the Buddha says, are all based on heedfulness. So as we take precautions as we go through daily life, it’s not a matter of worry and fear. It’s strength, protection, confidence, lack of regret—all of which are good qualities to nurture in our hearts and minds.
- Not-self in Context… The Buddha has a passage where he talks about the five faculties. He says you see their origination, their passing away, their allure, their drawbacks, and the escape from them. That’s interesting because usually he uses that five-fold analysis with things that are unskillful or attachments that are unskillful. Here he’s focusing it on parts of the path. But after all …
- A Magic Set of Tools… In all of the descriptions of the path — such as the noble eightfold path, the five faculties, the seven factors for awakening — right mindfulness always precedes right concentration. So don’t think of them as separate practices; think of them as qualities of the mind that help each other along. Mindfulness turns into directed thought as it shades into the steadiness of concentration. Once …
- Analyzing Anger… But there’s one passage where he applies the same analysis to the five faculties. That’s different. That’s what you do when you’ve gotten rid of your really gross defilements and you realize that the elements of the path have their drawbacks as well. Up to that point, you’ve had to go with them and you’ve had to actually …
- Secluded from Sensuality… But you also develop the five faculties, including right concentration, so you’re not totally immersed in pain. Now, there are sensual pleasures that are actually okay along the way. The Buddha notes that he doesn’t say No to all sensual pleasures. He says, however, that you have to notice which kinds of pleasures that you indulge in have a bad effect on …
- Pleasant Practice, Painful Practice… In both cases, the Buddha said, what determines whether your practice is going to be pleasant or painful is which kind of contemplation leads you to develop the five strengths and the five faculties: conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. “Concentration” in both cases means the jhanas, but the theme leading you to develop those jhanas, and from there on into discernment, is something …
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