Discovering Confidence Through The Five Powers

When you hear "The Five Powers" what do you think of? Some sort of super hero power or maybe energy to give life to an object? That is what I thought before I read about the The Five Powers in The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh. These Five Powers are described to be powers which help us to generate energy within ourselves (184). The Five Powers are faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and insight (185).

The first power is faith. Faith is described as "the confidence we receive when we put into practice a teaching that helps us overcome difficulties and obtain some transformation." Faith then leads to the second power, diligence which in turn continues to strengthen faith. Diligence is described as the energy that brings joy into the practice of the powers. Following diligence, the third power mindfulness is to use the energy of Right Mindfulness (185). This is to look deeply into the present moment and stay in touch with it by not getting lost in the past, future or negative emotions. The power of mindfulness leads to the forth power of concentration. I perceive concentration as forgetting all that is around you and keeping your focus on one specific thing. Concentration leads to insight and faith. With the relationship of the qualities concentration, insight, faith and mindfulness, life is filled with joy and energy of being alive, described as the second power, diligence. The final power is wisdom or insight. This is described as the ability to not only see clearly and look deeply into something, but to understand what results from this power. By seeing clearly it is help to abandon what is false in the surroundings (186).

 With this understanding of The Five Powers, it flourished a better connection with the idea of watering good seeds within us. The quote "If you get rid of all your unwholesome seeds, you won't have anything to practice. We need to practice now with all the unwholesome seeds in us. If we don't the negative seeds will grow and cause a great deal of suffering." on page 186 put The Five Powers into perspective for me and it was easy to relate to, as well. After reading this quote I automatically thought of a personal struggle. Personally, the negative seeds reminded me of some tough times as a younger teenager due to my appearance and the presence of acne. Through all the pain, harassment and embarrassment, a negative seed had been planted in me. It was until I realized not to let others get the best of me and to have confidence in myself. That is when I started to water the positive, wholesome seeds within myself and allow myself the power to grow with energy and joy. I am thankful for that negative seed, for I would not have been able to recognize that and rise above it to leave me where I am today, a confident individual. Without the struggle I would never have known what the feeling of joy was. To me, joy is waking up everyday with confidence in myself. Through faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration and insight, the energy and joy was given to me in order to practice watering the positive seeds to help me grow.

The Five Powers can relate to my life not only through my negative experiences as a young teenager, but also my present day self. As a pre-pharmacy major the course load is rigorous and stressful. When it came time to look at colleges as a junior in high school, I was set on looking at schools that only offered pre-pharmacy. I knew from the beginning that the journey would be tough but I definitely didn't think it would be this tough. After being defeated by an exam that required extensive studying, I had realized it wasn't time to let this defeat get the best of me. That gave me the spark to stay positive and keep pushing forward. With help from my family and my best friends by watering my wholesome seeds, I was able to keep the positive attitude that I needed to succeed. Everyone can use a little support and uplifting and sometimes that is all you need to get yourself going again. From then on, it was easier for me to recognize my wholesome roots and water them myself. In turn, this gave me the joy and energy I needed to study adequately along with the faith to believe in myself, energy to keep studying hard, mindfulness on why I am studying pharmacy, concentration and indigence to my schoolwork and insight to a bright future.