Question

Please could you explain the five powers of mind and how they relate to each other in the practice.

Answer

I think you mean the Five Spiritual Powers. The first one, Saddha or confidence, is very important. Confidence is a spiritual power, without confidence we don't do anything. Confidence, Energy, Mindfulness, Concentration and Wisdom. Concentration and energy help balance each other, confidence and wisdom help balance each other, and mindfulness is on its own, although it also can be helped by concentration.

How do they relate to each other in the practice? Without confidence we don't practice. Usually we have too much doubt and we stop practicing. So developing confidence is very helpful for the development of the joy factor of enlightenment and developing energy. Concentration needs to be balanced with mindfulness and wisdom so that we direct the concentration in the right way. Energy needs to be balanced with concentration so that we understand what to do with our energy.

They relate also to the Seven Factors of Enlightenment and the Ten Paramis. All these lists tend to interconnect with each other and this is the wonderful part about the Dhamma. When you look at one list you can see another list and see how they help to balance each other. This is quite important with Buddhism because we are talking about walking the middle way, which means making sure everything is in balance so that we don't go too far to the left or too far to the right.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.