

   
   
            BPS Newsletter Cover Essay #22 (Winter 1992-93)
                                           
                                           
                      THE FIVE SPIRITUAL FACULTIES
                                           
                            by Bhikkhu Bodhi
                                           
                                           
                                           
   The practice of the Buddha's teaching is most commonly depicted by 
   the image of a journey, the eight factors of the Noble Eightfold 
   Path constituting the royal roadway along which the disciple must 
   travel. The Buddhist scriptures, however, illustrate the quest for 
   liberation in a variety of other ways, each of which throws a 
   different spotlight on the nature of the practice. Although the 
   alternative formulations inevitably draw upon the same basic set of 
   mental factors as those that enter into the eightfold path, they 
   structure these factors around a different "root metaphor" -- an 
   image which evokes its own particular range of associations and 
   highlights different aspects of the endeavor to reach the cessation 
   of suffering.
   
   One of the groups of factors given special prominence in the Suttas 
   included by the Buddha among the thirty-seven requisites of 
   enlightenment is the five spiritual faculties: the faculties of 
   faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. The term 
   //indriya//, faculties, applied to this group as a whole is derived 
   from the name of the ancient Vedic god Indra, ruler of the devas, 
   and the term accordingly suggests the divine-like quality of control 
   and domination. The five faculties are so designated because they 
   exercise control in their own specific compartments of the spiritual 
   life. As the god Indra vanquished the demons and attained supremacy 
   among the gods, so each of the five faculties is called upon to 
   subdue a particular mental disability and to marshal the 
   corresponding potency of mind towards the breakthrough to final 
   enlightenment.
   
   The notion of faculty is partly akin to the ancient Greek conception 
   of the virtues. Like the virtues, the faculties are active powers 
   which coordinate and canalize our natural energies, directing them 
   towards the achievement of an inward harmony and balance essential 
   to our true happiness and peace. Since the faculties are to serve as 
   agents of inward control, this implies that apart from their 
   restraining influence our nature is not under our own control. Left 
   to itself without the guidance of a superior source of instruction, 
   the mind is a prey to forces that swell up from within itself, dark 
   forces which hold us in subjection and prevent us from attaining our 
   own highest welfare and genuine good. These forces are the 
   defilements (//kilesa//). As long as we live and act under their 
   dominion we are not our own masters but passive pawns, driven by our 
   blind desires into courses of conduct that promise fulfillment but 
   in the end lead only to misery and bondage. True freedom necessarily 
   involves the attainment of inner autonomy, the strength to withstand 
   the pushes and pulls of our appetites, and this is accomplished 
   precisely by the development of the five spiritual faculties.
   
   The qualities that exercise the function of faculties are of humble 
   origin, appearing initially in mundane roles in the course of our 
   everyday lives. In these humble guises they manifest as trustful 
   confidence in higher values, as vigorous effort towards the good, as 
   attentive awareness, as focused concentration, and as intelligent 
   understanding. The Buddha's teaching does not implant these 
   dispositions into the mind from scratch but harnesses those 
   pre-existent capacities of our nature towards a supramundane goal -- 
   towards the realization of the Unconditioned -- thereby conferring 
   upon them a transcendental significance. By assigning them a task 
   that reveals their immense potential, and by guiding them along a 
   track that can bring that potential to fulfillment, the Dhamma 
   transforms these commonplace mental factors into spiritual 
   faculties, mighty instruments in the quest for liberation that can 
   fathom the profoundest laws of existence and unlock the doors to the 
   Deathless.
   
   In the practice of the Dhamma each of these faculties has 
   simultaneously to perform its own specific function and to harmonize 
   with the other faculties to establish the balance needed for clear 
   comprehension. The five come to fullest maturity in the 
   contemplative development of insight, the direct road to awakening. 
   In this process the faculty of faith provides the element of 
   inspiration and aspiration which steers the mind away from the 
   quagmire of doubt and settles it with serene trust in the Triple Gem 
   as the supreme basis of deliverance. The faculty of energy kindles 
   the fire of sustained endeavor that burns up obstructions and brings 
   to maturity the factors that ripen in awakening. The faculty of 
   mindfulness contributes clear awareness, the antidote to 
   carelessness and the prerequisite of penetration. The faculty of 
   concentration holds the beam of attention steadily focused on the 
   rise and fall of bodily and mental events, calm and composed. And 
   the faculty of wisdom, which the Buddha calls the crowning virtue 
   among all the requisites of enlightenment, drives away the darkness 
   of ignorance and lights up the true characteristics of phenomena.
   
   Just as much as the five faculties, considered individually, each 
   perform their own unique tasks in their respective domains, as a 
   group they accomplish the collective task of establishing inner 
   balance and harmony. To achieve this balanced striving the faculties 
   are divided into two pairs in each of which each member must counter 
   the undesirable tendency inherent in the other, thus enabling it to 
   actualize its fullest potential. The faculties of faith and wisdom 
   form one pair, aimed at balancing the capacities for devotion and 
   comprehension; the faculties of energy and concentration form a 
   second pair aimed at balancing the capacities for active exertion 
   and calm recollection. Above the complementary pairs stands the 
   faculty of mindfulness, which protects the mind from extremes and 
   ensures that the members of each pair hold one another in a mutually 
   restraining, mutually enriching tension.
   
   Born of humble origins in everyday functions of the mind, through 
   the Dhamma the five faculties acquire a transcendent destiny. When 
   they are developed and regularly cultivated, says the Master, "they 
   lead to the Deathless, are bound for the Deathless, culminate in the 
   Deathless."

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