Dhamma Talks - The Five Powers :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

The term “Power” in Buddhism means two powers; mental and physical. This is because Buddhism teaches that life is a combination of two parts; mind and body. And when we, human beings, were firstly born, we are very weak; we cannot help ourselves. It is different from some beings such as an animal; when they were born, they could survive on their own without the help of parents. On the contrary, if we were left like an animal, we would certainly die.

It does not mean that we don’t have power or ability to live our life. We certainly have, but we need a good care and certain time of care until we grow up and are able to help ourselves. As mentioned that human life consists of mind and body so the mind needs knowledge as food and the body needs healthy food to sustain life. Human life is comparable to a young plant which is needed a good care; it needs good soil, enough water and fertilizer.

“Power” which mentioned consists of five as follows:

1) Confidence; which means self-confidence; the Buddha taught the world that all of us have power and ability to overcome all obstacles in life. We must be confident that we can do everything like others. We should not lose our confidence; bear in our mind that we can do.
2) Effort; which means anything needs to be done by our own effort. We cannot leave our work to others people’s hands. We must take responsibility for our own life and job. We must build our life with our own effort. We should not give up things easily.
3) Mindfulness; means awareness or carefulness. This is how to deal with life. We must know what is going on here now. Right must be known and wrong must be known here now. And then we can avoid doing bad actions and develop good actions. All actions are performed here now and after that the result is going to follow, so mindfulness is regarded as the most importance because here and now action will produce consequence. If present is good, consequence is good either.
4) Concentration; means stable establishment or readiness to work in our business. When we run any business, we must focus on or tether our attention to that. Otherwise, we cannot succeed in our business. To live a life as well, we need concentration to life; we cannot just live a life randomly. If we want to succeed in life, we need to concentrate on life.
5) Wisdom; means knowledge and comprehension which help us to know life, confidence to spend life, make an effort to live a life wisely. Wisdom is such great thing which moves life on; even there are a lot of problems. But if we are wise, we are able to deal with anything.

Five of them are comparable to strong characters. Each of them has its own influence. Even they have their own influence, but they still need balance. Otherwise some may be stronger and dominate others. Balance will bring more and more harmonious power.
For more understanding about power, there is one story which can be illustrated.

Wood cutter

Once upon a time, there was a very strong and confident woodcutter. He asked for a job from a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was confident and determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.

The first day, the woodcutter brought down 20 trees. The Boss was very much impressed and said, "Congratulations, Go on that way!" Very motivated by the words of the boss, the woodcutter was more confident that he could do better the next day. When the next day came, he tried harder than yesterday, but he only could bring down 15 trees. In the evening, he went to see the boss with disappointment and got his lower wage. He was a bit uncertain about his ability and effort put into his work. The third day he went to work with uncertainty and tried even harder than before, but he only could bring down 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing down less and less trees. Then I lost his confidence completely and had no more effort to work. "I must be losing my strength", the woodcutter doubted and thought to himself. He went to the boss without confidence and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on. “When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" the boss asked. "Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I haven’t been aware of that as I have been very busy trying to cut trees.

The moral of the story:

Our lives are like that. We sometimes get so busy and are neither mindful nor aware of what we are doing now. We don't take time to sharpen our skills. Without awareness and sharpening skills, we lose confidence bit by bit, lose effort bit by bit and no more concentrate on the job that we are doing. We will try to complain and blame the others. This will cause conflict inside and outside. So we need time to reflect on what we are doing, sharpen our skills. With awareness and wisdom, we can gain confidence, effort and concentration back and we can be contented and enjoy life.

In today's world, it seems that everyone is busier than ever, but less happy than ever. Why is that? Could it be that we have forgotten how to stay sharp? There's nothing wrong with activity and hard work. But we should not get so busy that we neglect the truly important things in life, like our personal life, taking time to care for others, taking time to read etc. We all need time to relax, to think and meditate, to learn and grow. If we don't take time to sharpen the axe, we will become dull and lose our confidence, effort and concentration. When we lose those, our life will be affected. So start from today, think about the ways by which you could do your job more effectively and add a lot of value to it. Hope this story has given you some insight to life, may you be happy always! "To handle yourself, use confidence, effort, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. To handle others, use your heart".