The Post # 56 - The Pancha Indriya Dhamma; The Five Spiritual  Faculties – Part 1

We saw in Post # 41 and Post # 42 that the Buddha has referred to 37 factors that assist in realizing the world transcending wisdom which in the Pali language are termed as sath-tiss bodhi-pakkhiya dhamma. It is the ultimate wisdom known as Awakening. These 37 factors are grouped under seven sets based on their focus and emphasis. In this Post, you will find some details on The Pancha Indriya Dhamma – The Five Spiritual Faculties -one of the seven sets of the 37 factors referred to above – as extracted from Buddhist texts for your benefit.

I found this reference in the web on the Five Spiritual Faculties. It says- “The Buddha was very pragmatic. He didn't philosophize about "the nature of reality"; he gave us simple, basic guidelines about how we can manage the challenges and difficulties of life. The Buddha started with the basic human condition - we often suffer. Suffering can take many forms: anxiety, tension, stress, grief, fear, or dissatisfaction, to name a few. He emphasized that suffering is workable- that is we can engage with our suffering in such a way as to be freed from it. He described five faculties that we need to develop to do so: confidence (faith), effort, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment (wisdom). These five qualities are present in varying degrees with everybody and in almost every activity. They are useful in developing any skill, be it playing a musical instrument, training in a sport, or cultivating a meditative mind. The Buddha recognized these universal human capacities and taught us how to use them to develop the craft of meditation”.

When referring to the Indriya Dhamma, the Pali word Indriya is translated here as "faculty".  It carries connotations of dominance or control. Buddhist texts contain several lists of faculties, both physical and mental, but here the word denotes a list of five mental factors that must reach a state of dominance in the mind for Awakening to take place. They are as referred to above.

An anthology from the Pali Canon called the Wings to Awakening by Thanissaro Bhikkhu makes reference to these faculties that they form a loop in the causal progression of the mind along the path to liberation. In the causal loop depicted by these five faculties, the emphasis is on how the elements of the "concentration aggregate" in the Noble Eightfold Path, that is -right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration-can lead the mind from a state of conviction to one of discernment. The five spiritual faculties of the mind, also known as controlling faculties, are expected to develop up to their maturity during one’s spiritual journey towards the final enlightenment. Each one of them is known to have dominance and control over their specific aspect of someone’s mind.

In a Sinhala Dhamma talk Ven. Polpithimukalane Pangasiri Thero describing Indriya Dhamma ( Spiritual Faculties) says that “ To achieve release from this unsatisfactory cycle of Samsara, Buddha has said that one has to develop the five spiritual faculties of saddhā :faith; viriya : energy; sati : awareness or mindfulness; samādhi : concentration ; and paññā : understanding. He then went  on to describe them in detail.

It could be said that we already possess these five mental qualities to some extent in our mundane life which are necessary to carry out any particular task in our day to day life successfully or to learn any specific skill. Buddha has therefore selected a set of mental qualities that a spiritual seeker may already posses in various strengths and encouraged them to develop each one of them further until they become enlightenment factors. They need to be developed and cultivated until they become dominant and controlling factors so that they are able to confront and dominate over any opposing factors or mental defilements that can hinder one’s spiritual development. The five spiritual faculties develop and become gradually stronger as one attains the four Noble stages of the spiritual path namely, Stream Entry (sotapanna), Once Returner (sakadagami), Non-Returner (anagami) and Arahant.

In Buddhist literature the term “Pancha indriya” also refers to the five physical sense organs of the eye, ear, nose, tongue and the body through which one receives sense objects from the external world. But, here it refers to the five spiritual qualities of the mind that need to be developed during the path of liberation. According to Buddhist literature only a Samma Sambuddha- an enlightened incomparable Buddha, such as Gautama Buddha - through a special mental power known as the Indriya Paro Pariyatti Nana (one of six types of incomparable knowledge of a Samma Sambuddha) would be able to recognize the presence and the maturity of the five spiritual faculties in another person.

We will now discuss each one of these factors in some detail based on the contents of the accounts given by the learned scholars mentioned above.

Shaddha or Conviction/Trust/Faith

The word Saddha in the Pali language means all of faith, trust, devotion, or confidence. Some scholars prefer the terms trust and confidence more based on reasoning and investigative analysis. Two types of faith have been described in Buddhist teaching: They are blind, irrational, baseless faith (amulika saddha) and confidence, based on reason and experience (akarawathi saddha). Buddha did not encourage the disciples to blindly follow him or his teaching, but encouraged them to explore and investigate so that one can develop confidence in the teaching through experiential verification. Faith or devotion associated with strong emotions can become an obstacle to spiritual development.

We saw before how these five faculties, enable the elements of the "concentration aggregate" in the Noble Eightfold Path (right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration) to lead the mind from a state of conviction to one of discernment. This is the process by which the mind goes from the preliminary level (laukika), to the noble or transcendent level (lokothara) of right view. This set can also be regarded as a description of how conviction, when put into action, inherently leads through the concentration aggregate to transcendent discernment.

The faculty of conviction is included in the four factors of stream-entry path - which are association with noble friends, listening to the Dhamma, trust in the Noble Triple Gem and wise discernment of the present moment experiences as they unfold. These four factors are defined in two separate ways. One, listing the factors leading to stream-entry, and the other listing the factors that characterize the person who has already entered the stream. Both lists are relevant here, as the person working toward stream-entry must act on conviction, while a person who has entered the stream is endowed with the unwavering conviction that comes with the first glimpse of Enlightenment. In both cases, the factor of conviction has several dimensions: trust in the ability of wise people to know the true path of practice, belief in their teachings, and a willingness to put those teachings into practice. In practice, however, all three must work together.

Confidence through the realization of the Four Noble Truths and then the path of liberation is the confidence in Dhamma. One needs to have some understanding of the universality of suffering and the inevitability of experiencing pain, anxiety, grief etc. to develop a willingness to look for a way out of suffering. When one hears of the Buddha’s teaching that there is an identified cause of suffering which can be removed and that the Buddha has shown a way to come out of suffering, one naturally develops some initial faith to enter and test that path. Thus faith in Buddha’s teaching can act as an essential and powerful motivating factor particularly in the initial stages of a disciple’s spiritual journey towards liberation from suffering. This initial faith can also create the confidence that the enlightenment that was attained by the Buddha and his disciples in the past can also be attained by others by following the same path. The conviction in the primacy of the mind in creating kamma, a conviction in the efficacy of kamma in shaping the round of rebirth, and a belief that the Buddha made use of mental qualities accessible to all, in using the laws of kamma to bring about an end to kamma and thus escape from the round of rebirth (samsaric cycle) is needed.  These truths concerning kamma also determine both the dynamic of continued life in the cycle of rebirth and the way out of that cycle. If one is convinced that one is entangled in a kammic web that can nevertheless be unraveled, one will naturally try to learn from the example of the Buddha or his disciples for developing the same mental qualities they did, for attaining release. Thus, unlike a religion where trust involves the belief that the deity will provide for one's salvation-either through grace or as a reward for unquestioning obedience-trust in the Buddha’s  teachings means that one's salvation is ultimately one's own responsibility. In this way, trust, belief, and a willingness to act are inseparably combined. 
The Sangha (monastics) are either liberated or are on the path of liberation by following the Buddha’s teaching. One who is endowed with unwavering faith in the Sangha: the Buddha’s disciples who have practiced well...who have practiced straight-forwardly...who have practiced methodically...who have practiced masterfully-in other words, the four types of noble disciples when taken as pairs, or the eight types when taken as individuals are the Sangha : worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect, and  the incomparable field of merit for the world. 
When one attains the first stage of the Path -Stream Entry (sotapanna), with the total elimination of any skeptical doubt (vicikicca), faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, becomes unwavering and unshakable (aveccappasada). Such a person also has attained perfect morality. When one completes the spiritual journey and attains Nibbana by becoming an Arahat, one does not need to depend on faith any longer as it is replaced by wisdom through personal realisation.

As the content in each post has to be limited to ease reading, I will end the description here and continue in the next post # 57 the balance details of the other faculties..