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Five Spiritual Faculties

Once upon a time, someone asked, "When is a good time to be mindful?" The answer was, "When it's the best alternative, when it's the best option." One of the phenomena that happens as we start practicing mindfulness is that we begin to discover it's often the best option. It becomes the better option the more we practice it.

Part of the reason for this is that as we practice mindfulness, we start seeing what our mind stream is doing. Occasionally, our mind stream is not of a high quality. It might be doing something harmful, or it might just be a drag—the topics, the concerns, the attitudes. In those circumstances, mindfulness is a better option. What mindfulness does is interrupt the freedom of our unhealthy mind streams from just perpetuating themselves. If we're not mindful, they run freely, reinforcing themselves to become stronger and stronger. But to be mindful is always a helpful, wholesome, and beneficial thing for the mind to do, because it's a way of stepping out of that mind stream and seeing it. The more clearly we see, "Oh, that's not a cool way of thinking"—with clarity, without judgment or criticism—we interrupt that mind stream to some degree. We step out of it for a moment.

When you ask the question, "What's the best time to be mindful?" I think it's right now, because it's the better alternative. Sometimes we're thinking about something that's not necessarily harmful for us or for others, but we've thought it ten thousand times, and mindfulness is simply a better option.

Discovering Divine Qualities Within

As we step out of the mind stream into mindfulness, we start discovering over time that something else is available to us beyond just redirecting the mind. I redirect my mind sometimes. I'll be thinking about something and say, "You know, this is not useful to think about." Or I'm going to give a talk later in the day, and I start thinking about something ridiculous that has nothing to do with the talk. It's not a bad thought, but I think I'm better off thinking about what to talk about when I come to IMC. So my mind goes there for a while, and that seems better. We can redirect the mind, and I often do that in the course of the day. It isn't repressing anything or being pollyannaish; it just seems very matter-of-fact and straightforward to choose the better option.

But as mindfulness becomes stronger, there is something else that's possible to discover. There are all kinds of wonderful states, capacities, or qualities inside that can arise that have nothing to do with our mind stream or what we're thinking about. These wonderful inner qualities bubble up, almost as if mindfulness makes space for them. You can't make space for them if you keep thinking.

You might have a habit of having the most beautiful, noble, inspiring, and healthy thoughts that anybody has ever had in the history of humanity. You have a record of usually doing this all day long, and you're proud, engaged, and inspired by what you're thinking about. Please keep doing so if you want! However, if you are constantly filling the space with those thoughts, there's no inner space for something else to arise and develop.

As we get a sense that mindfulness makes space for something beautiful to happen within us, the question of when is the best time to be mindful takes on a whole different meaning. There's more understanding: "Oh, now is the best time." Even the most beautiful thoughts—like drafting the Great American Novel—might be wonderful, but there are even better things.

There are qualities and capacities we have inside that, when they become strong, some people might describe as divine. Maybe that's what the Buddha did when he called five particular states we have inside indriya^[1]. They are named after the Indian god Indra—associated with the heavenly or the divine. The usual English translation is "the five faculties." "Five faculties" seems nice, but isn't it kind of bland? "Oh yeah, I have five faculties." But if you realize you have five divinities within... I mean, some of you might be alarmed and running away! But these five divine qualities are also sometimes called "the five strengths" (bala^[2])—something you also don't get from the word "faculties." The difference between these two words, indriya and bala, is just linguistic according to the Buddha; they represent the same thing. So these divine qualities are also wonderful strengths or powers that we can carry within us.

The Five Strengths

Let me continue the analogy with mindfulness before I name them. As we are mindful, we discover what our mind stream is up to. Sometimes we see it's up to something unhealthy for us, not so beneficial, or maybe even harmful. Sometimes it's just a waste of time. And sometimes it's actually wonderful; the thoughts and concerns are inspiring and healthy.

Seeing those options clearly gives us a chance to choose which to pursue. Imagine seeing three foods in front of you: one is poisonous, one is tasteless, and one is incredibly satisfying—perhaps a favorite dish from childhood that represents parental love. It nourishes you in so many more ways than just food because of the love associated with it. Poison, bland food, or food that conveys love: what would you choose? Not many people would choose the poison.

When we choose the food associated with maternal or paternal care, something different happens within us—something inspiring and nourishing. The same thing can happen internally as we see the smorgasbord of different thought streams we have inside. If you're always in a complaining mind state, that's getting into the territory of poison. If you're always hostile, full of resentment, or constantly greedy, it is a kind of poison for our hearts, minds, and bodies. Generosity, love, wisdom, and kindness do a whole different thing. These positive states can truly feed us in wonderfully good ways.

As we do mindfulness practice, we start seeing the range of possibilities of what our mind can be up to. At first, it might happen in meditation. You start thinking about lottery tickets, calculating the most likely numbers to win. In a forty-minute meditation, after twenty minutes, it finally dawns on you: "What a waste of time. I don't think I'll do that anymore. Let me switch and focus on my breathing." You focus on your breathing, and it feels good and relaxing. By the time the next twenty minutes are over, you feel settled, relaxed, and quiet. It's so much better to have done that than to spend all forty minutes guessing lottery numbers.

In meditation, we start seeing what kind of thinking is not useful. Sometimes we discover that there is no good thinking in meditation—we have much better things to do than keep thinking, so we just let the mind get quiet and calm. We start making choices about what we pick up, what we perpetuate, and what we put down. After a while, we develop confidence—not only that we can do that, but confidence that there are better choices. We start trusting that process, so instead of switching gears after twenty minutes, we switch after a few minutes.

Confidence (Saddhā) We become inspired by these other states of mind that can happen. There is trust in doing something different. Sometimes, without thinking about it, people trust resentment, complaining, or grumbling, because that's what the mind does most of the time. But when we come to meditation, we start seeing that the usual mind streams are not so useful. So we start putting them down and trusting something else. After a while, we become inspired: "How lucky I am that I have this practice that allows me to change the mind stream, settle the mind, and access something else."

We might even say we start having faith in this potential and possibility. Over time, this sense of faith or confidence^[3] gets stronger and stronger until it becomes divine; it becomes a strength that we have. It makes a huge difference to have this confidence in the practice, because sometimes practice is hard to do. Sometimes our mind streams are very challenging, and the "lawyers of the mind" will argue against practice. They'll tell you that you have to plan revenge, that you deserve it, or that you have a right to it. But when you have so much confidence in what happens when we don't get caught in these unhealthy mind streams, that faith overrides the lawyers, and we choose the healthy direction. This confidence gets stronger and stronger until it feels truly inspiring.

Vitality (Viriya) As we see more clearly the choices the mind can make, we put effort into choosing the healthy direction. Making the effort to let go of distractions and choose mindfulness involves choice. As we repeatedly make that effort—like the effort to sit down and meditate day after day, returning to the breathing over and over—that effort factor gets strong. At some point, that effort and mindfulness together start giving rise to a certain kind of vitality that carries us along. Some people might call it qi (chi).

In Pali, this inner vitality is called viriya^[4]. You might feel this in an ordinary way if you start a new exercise practice like bicycling or running. At first, it's really hard, and the body screams to stop. But as you get conditioned, you start feeling a wonderful vitality and joy in the exercise. When you stop, the vitality remains for a while. The same thing happens with the mental practice of mindfulness. A vitality gets unleashed, awakened, and released.

Awareness (Sati) Mindfulness is something we choose to keep doing. We see the mind gets distracted, and we come back to be mindful again. Over time, that capacity to be aware (sati^[5]) becomes second nature, much like strengthening a muscle. You just stay aware. Maybe you've had the experience where, after a good meditation session, you feel fresh and really present. You go to the kitchen to make breakfast, and instead of automatically rushing off into distraction, you're there in a relaxed, calm way. The kitchen might even sparkle a little bit because you're paying attention.

The awareness built up during meditation persists after it's over—at least until you start reading the news! Awareness can become a strength. When it has a life of its own, it's present and available to you without having to do a lot of work. The stronger it becomes, the more divine it feels; it is a fantastic capacity.

Unification (Samādhi) As we become less distracted, we begin to overcome being fragmented. We gather ourselves together, becoming wholehearted and complete in whatever we are doing right now. This is samādhi^[6], often translated as concentration, but fundamentally it is the state of being undistracted.

It is such a beautiful feeling to engage in washing your dishes wholeheartedly, as if this is the only valuable thing to do. What a rare thing in our distracted world! Many people wash dishes and automatically turn on the radio or TV to get input, while simultaneously going through their to-do list. They're hardly present. There is no samadhi of dishwashing. But there is dishwashing samadhi, which is such a pleasure. The alternative is to be fragmented and split.

As we learn to be mindful and choose to be present more and more, a unification process goes on. It turns out that this unified feeling of being fully present can be divine or spiritual. Concentration can become so strong that you carry a unified state with you as you go through your day.

Wisdom (Paññā) As you continue mindfulness practice, you start seeing what is wholesome and unwholesome. You see the strength of confidence, vitality, awareness, and unification. From this, wisdom (paññā^[7]) arises. One of the key forms of wisdom is deeply appreciating how valuable it is to choose the wholesome direction and avoid the unwholesome. You see how much it benefits you and how healthy it is. Wisdom becomes a strength that you bring with you everywhere, helping you make choices that keep these spiritual qualities present.

These five—confidence, vitality, awareness, unification, and wisdom—are strengths we can carry with us. They are spiritual or divine qualities.

Profound Generative Attention

For the Buddha, these five qualities describe what changes in a person as they mature in Buddhist practice. A fully awakened person has all these five qualities developed to their maximum strength. The Buddha talks about these not so much as something you "practice," but something that arises out of your practice.

He doesn't say "practice faith," "practice vitality," or "practice unification." We do Buddhist practice: the practice of recognizing our mind stream, choosing what is healthy, and making the effort to let go of distractions. There are things that we do, but there is also what is done to us when we do so. These five spiritual powers are born within us, growing and developing over time. Practice supports the arising of these things.

If these five states aren't inspiring to you, hopefully the alternative is uninspiring. To have doubt and skepticism, to have your vitality drained by society and technology, to not be aware (and risk accidents), to be fragmented and broken, and to be foolish—none of these are good for us. In Buddhism, there are no sinners; there are only fools and wise people. The thing about being a fool is that you can always become wise.

There is a wonderful term I came up with to translate a very important concept in early Buddhism: "profound generative attention."^[8] There is a profound way of being present, mindful, and aware that allows for the emergence—the generation—of these wonderful divine qualities within us. These five faculties (confidence, vitality, awareness, unification, and wisdom) are working to support us.

It's good to recognize them. They are likely operating in many activities in your daily life, maybe unbeknownst to you. You might not think washing the dishes is a spiritual practice. But you have confidence you can wash them well without breaking anything. You put effort into it. Is it a nourishing effort with vitality, or is it impatient multitasking? Can you give yourself wholeheartedly to the dishes, just like activities you love? When I worked in a Zen monastery kitchen, I learned to give myself wholeheartedly to the work. When I went to the meditation hall immediately after, my mind was already undistracted and concentrated.

Then there is the wisdom to understand that it makes a difference how you wash the dishes, how you drive, how you speak with your friends, and how you do your work. Recognizing these five qualities and making space for them allows this profound generative attention to do its work. It's not the ego making something happen; we are allowing something profound within us to emerge. This is part of the gift of this practice.

I hope this inspires you to explore these five qualities in your meditation and in the activities of your daily life. If you do that in your daily life, then you don't have to go to a monastery like I did!

[Laughter]

Q&A

Question: For my job, I am required to multitask a lot. When I'm in a meeting, I'm supposed to answer Slack messages and read emails. What's the best way to deal with so many inquiries throughout the day while making sure I fulfill my work duties?

Gil Fronsdal: I'm not sure exactly what to say for your specific situation, but what I learned is that sometimes it's possible to multitask wonderfully. When I was the dishwasher in the monastery, doing that work felt like a dance—spinning, turning, multitasking. Later, I worked as a fast-order cook in a restaurant, doing multitasking galore. What I learned was to let go of any resistance. I would give myself over completely to the multitasking, much like a soccer player who has to pay attention to so many things moving on the field at once. I don't know if this works for what you do, but look at your resistance. Letting go of my resistance is what helped me.

Question: I was wondering if you could speak to the process of feeling like you're really riding the wave of samadhi, but then you slip, life happens, and you get caught in the wake and beaten up by the reef. Is this a common occurrence? Do you just get back on the surfboard and paddle out?

Gil Fronsdal: Yes, that's a very common occurrence. What else can you do? You tumble, life comes over, you lose your mindfulness, and you start again. However, there is one more thing you can do that's important: spend some time reflecting on what happened and learn from it. There might be reasons why you keep tumbling. Maybe it's not the waves that are the problem. Someone might keep falling off their surfboard not because of the waves, but because they are trying to show off to the people on the beach! So you reflect: "Why do I keep falling off? Oh, I'm paying attention to the people on the beach instead of the waves." The more you get tumbled around by life, the more useful it is to step back, see what your contribution was, and figure out what behavioral changes are needed. Or maybe you just need a bigger surfboard!

Question: When things are going easily, it's natural to be mindful. But when I'm surrounded by hate and division—like political figures or things written on Facebook—it's very hard for me to stay mindful. I want to put positive stuff out there, but then I'm attacked. How do I approach this without withdrawing?

Gil Fronsdal: Based on the talk today, I'd say that one reason we get swept up in that is because we lack confidence in something healthy. If you have deep confidence in love—that there always has to be love, and if there isn't, it's not worth it—then when anger and fear-mongering come at you, you don't lose your center. If you start drifting into anger, you can say, "Wait a minute, I really believe in love, peace, and non-reactivity. I don't want to live in a world where I'm constantly triggered and lose my commitment to those values." I encourage you to reflect on your deepest values and find a way to build more confidence in them, so that when these things come at you, you are ready and established in that confidence.

Question: You started out by saying we should ask if anger and negativity are the best option. But what do you do if you're already going in the direction of anger, maybe in a relationship with powerful feelings? I don't want to suppress them.

Gil Fronsdal: A huge part of mindfulness practice is learning how to be present for difficult emotions without further reactivity, making space for them without giving in to them or acting through them. Meditation is a fantastic safe place where the volcano of anger can flow without us participating. You allow it to flow, but be very honest with yourself. Don't review the stories of why you're angry. Just be present: "This is a volcano of energy, this is what's happening." Open up and feel it in the body.

Because you are safe in meditation—you aren't going to lash out or hit someone—you can practice being present. As you observe your anger, you might start seeing through the cracks that you actually feel really hurt or sad. That is more primary. Once you realize the sadness or hurt, it's a whole different game. The anger begins to recede because it's not as important compared to the deeper hurt that needs attention. Mindfulness of emotions is a huge part of what we do in this practice. The confidence and vitality I talked about today get really strong when we learn that we can navigate difficult mind states. We realize, "I don't have to give in to it; I can allow for it and find a way through to the other side. Of course I will choose to be mindful rather than go along with the anger."