Samyutta Nikaya: Mahavagga: Indriyasamyutta (V-48)
Another factoring set: the five spiritual faculties of
faith (saddha)
energy (viriya)
mindfulness (sati)
concentration (samadhi)
wisdom (pañña)
1: Simple listing of the faculties
2 – 3: Describes a stream-enterer in terms of the five faculties: one who understands the gratification, the danger, and the escape.
4-5: Describes an arahant as one who has understood (as in #s 2 – 3) and has, as a result, been liberated by nonclinging. Thus the cultivation of the five faculties leads to arahantship—this is a description of the path.
6: Elaborates a bit, by saying “realizing it for themselves with direct knowledge.” The reassurance is given that “in this very life” they enter the goal.
7: Uses the Four Noble Truths formula, placing the faculties in the place of dukkha.
|
Faculty |
Origination |
|
Faith |
Resolution + desire to act + attention |
|
Energy |
Application + “” |
|
Mindfulness |
Establishing + “” |
|
Concentration |
Nondistraction + “” |
|
Wisdom |
Way of Seeing + “ |
But this understanding leads to liberation.
8: How the faculties are to be seen.
Faith: in the four factors of stream-entry (confidence in the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and virtues.)
Energy: in the four right strivings
1) Non-arising of non-wholesome states
2) Abandoning of arisen non-wholesome states
3) Arising of wholesome states
4) Maintenance of arisen wholesome states
Mindfulness: in the four establishments of mindfulness
(body, feelings, mind, phenomena)
Concentration: in the four jhanas
Wisdom: in the four noble truths
9: Further analysis of the faculties
Faith: in the Tathagata’s enlightenment
Energy: abandoning the non-wholesome; cultivating the wholesome
Mindfulness: includes memory
Concentration: one-pointedness of mind
Wisdom: seeing dependent origination very clearly
This placing of faith is one of my favorite passages so far:
“And what, bhikkhus, is the faculty of faith? Here, bhikkhus, the noble disciple is a person of faith, one who places faith in the enlightenment of the Tathagata thus: ‘The Blessed One is an arahant, perfectly enlightened, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, fortunate, knower of the world, unsurpassed leader of persons to be tamed, techer of devas and humans, the Enlightened One, the Blessed One.”
There’s an essay here on the subject of faith.
10: A full expansion of #8 (the notes already do the expansion so they aren’t needed here.)
11: Repeat of #9.
12: Analyses the stages of the path—from faith-follower to Dhamma-follower up through stream-entry…arahant in terms of the level of “completion and fulfillment” in the five faculties.
The difference between “faith-follower” and “Dhamma-follower” (both pre-stream-entry), appears to be that the faith-follower removes the defilments much more slowly, with much more effort.
14: Simplifies the issue of completion. One who activates them fully succeeds fully; one who activates them partly succeeds partly.
This ties in well with my previous observations that the various factors of the Path are marked gradations and not absolutes: like the scale from Wrong View to Right View. All sits on a gradation, a scale.
This would help us to realize that sincere practice always bears fruit. “The five faculties, bhikkhus, are not barren, so I say.”
18: Adds one more category to the stages of the path: one in whom these factors are comletely and totally absent, and that is an outsider, one who stands in the faction of worldlings.
So here the faculties are separated out into the transcendental. Gethin’s Path to Awakening (pgs. 126 – 138) can address this issue.
Gethin has a great deal to say about the connection of the faculties and the various degrees of awakening. There is a table which shows how the various suttas here in the Indriyasamyutta combine the stages of the Path with these faculties.
20: Three faculties: femininity, masculinity, life. Their actual meaning isn’t all that clear.
Vism 447:
Femininity: sign, mark, work, ways of the female
Masculinity: sign, mark, work, ways of the male
Life: maintains conascent kinds of matter. It’s function is to make them occur. (Impresses me as heat-energy, biological energy.)
(Part of a system of 24 elementals pertaining to the form aggregate.)
AN IV 57 – 59 on the feminine and masculine:
“…a woman marks femininity in herself, the feminine occupation, attire, prejudices, impulses, voice, charm…so a man marks masculinity in himself…”
The discourse explains how the feminine is excited by the masculine and desires a bond with it (and vice-versa.) Thus bondage instead of freedom.
25: Presents the six senses as faculties.
31: Five different faculties:
Pleasure Pain Joy Displeasure Equanimity
36: Helps to analyze the five faculties above:
Pleasure/Pain pertain to the body
Joy/Displeasure pertain to the mind
Equanimity pertains to both
Thus these faculties are really an expansion of three feelings: pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral.
39: Always keep these descriptions of feelings (for that’s really what these are) as descriptions of the workings of dependent origination.
40: This sutta is quoted extensively in Vism 165-166. This connects these faculties (feelings) to the jhanas, as such:
|
Faculty |
Subsides Upon Entering |
Jhana |
|
Pain |
|
First |
|
Displeasure |
|
Second |
|
Pleasure |
|
Third |
|
Joy |
|
Fourth |
|
Equanimity |
|
Neither perception nor non-perception |
41: The Buddha’s remarks on aging are an excellent way of bringing up impermanence.
42: The mind can experience the five senses; they cannot experience each other.
44: Makes the point again that we do not have to take anything on faith; we can practice and find out for ourselves. In this sutta the Buddha asks Sariputta:
“Sariputta, do you have faith that the faculty of faith, when developed and cultivated, has the Deathless as its ground, the Deathless as its destination, the Deathless as its final goal?…That the faculty of wisdom, when developed and cultivated, has the Deathless as its ground, the Deathless as its destination the Deathless as its final goal?”
Sariputta answers that he does not ‘go by faith in the Blessed One about this’. That’s because those who have not known, seen, understood, realized, and contacted with wisdom these faculties would require faith (confidence; trust) that they were so. But those who have known, seen, understood, realized, and contacted with wisdom these faculties know it for their own experience, and don’t require trust or confidence. Since Sariputta is one such person, he doesn’t require that trust or confidence.
However, we will need the saddha if we aren’t arahants like Sariputta. And, presumably, at some point, so did Sariputta. It probably wouldn’t be possible to come to the level of knowing, seeing, understanding, realizing, and contacting with wisdom unless we had originally started with that faith, trust, confidence.
45: Of the spiritual faculties it is wisdom which powers the arising of the other four.
50: A marvelous resource of the reasons for taking refuge in the Buddha: the expression fo trust in Enlightenment.
The Buddha asks Sariputta:
Sariputta, does the noble disciple who is completely dedicated to the Tathagata and has full confidence in him entertain any perplexity or doubt about the Tathagata or the Tathagata’s teaching?
Sariputta answers:
Venerable sir, the noble disciple who is completely dedicated to the Tathagata and has full confidence in him does not entertain any perplexity or doubt about the Tathagata or the Tathagata’s teaching. It is indeed to be expected, venerable sir, that a noble disciple who has faith will dwell with energy aroused for the abandoning of unwholesome states and the acquisition of wholesome states; that he will be strong, firm in exertion, not shiring the responsibility of cultivating wholesome states. That energy of his, venerable sir, is the faculty of energy…is the faculty of mindfulness…is the faculty of concentration…is the faculty of wisdom…
And, venerable sir, when he has again and again strived in such a way, again and again recollected in such a way, again and again concentrated his mind in such a way, again and again understood with wisdom in such a way, that a noble disciple gains complete faith thus: ‘As to these things that previous I had only heard about, now I dwell having contacted them with the body and, having percepved through through with wisdom, I see.’ That faith of his, venerable sir, is his faculty of faith.
51: Wisdom again at the head of the five spiritual faculties.
53: “There is no ascetic or brahmin outside here who teaches a Dhamm so real, true, actual as the Blessed One does.”
The spiritual paths are not the same. This statement is pretty blunt in giving the BuddhaDhamma the nod as the most true and upright.
54: Primacy of wisdom among the five spiritual faculties. Elephant’s footprint is the simile.
55: Same as #54, but with red sandalwood as the most fragrant of woods.
56: Diligence is the key—the one thing needed for the growth of the five spiritual faculties.
57: Here the five spiritual faculties have arisen in the Buddha’s mind shortly after his enlightenment and are confirmed by the Brahma Sahampati. This is similar in many ways—like a template—with #18 of the Satipatthanasamyutta (47).
But this one gives a little bit of Brahma Sahampati’s past—he practiced the five faculties and was reborn in the Brahma world in his exalted state as a result!
58: Bhikkhu Bodhi considers this sutta confusing in that it clearly indicates continued practice after the attainment of arahantship—as if there were no further practice.
But: the Buddha himself continued to meditate! I don’t see why arahantship—or even anuttara samyak sambodhi—need be considered as an end. Maybe you don’t have to practice, but at this point you are truly practicing for all sentient beings, just as you always have been, now with 100% effectiveness.
66: I like this “seven benefits” and fruits of practicing the five faculties:
Note that the first possibility is the most desirable and the last the least desirable, but all are marvelous fruits of the practice.