Ten strengths
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone! 🙏🙏🙏
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
The ten strengths (Skt. daśabala;Tib. སྟོབས་བཅུ, Wyl. stobs bcu; Tib. top chu) of the realization of a buddha correspond to his unobstructed knowledge of all things. They are also part of the twenty-one sets of immaculate qualities.
- knowing what is correct and incorrect (gnas dang gnas ma yin pa mkhyen pa);
- knowing the results of actions (rnam smin mkhyen pa);
- knowing the aspirations of beings (‘gro ba mos pa sna tshogs mkhyen pa);
- knowing all the elements (khams ji rnyed pa sna tshogs mkyen pa);
- knowing the different capacities of beings (dbang po rno rtul rnam pa sna tshogs mkhyen pa);
- knowing all the paths (kun tu ‘gro ba’i lam sna tshogs mkhyen pa);
- knowing all the different ways to establish meditative concentration (bsam gtan gyi bkod pa sna tshogs ji rnyed pa mkhyen pa);
- knowing previous lives of oneself and others (rang gzhan gyi sngon gyi gnas sna tshogs pa ji rnyed mkhyen pa);
- the knowledge of transference, death and future rebirth (‘chi ‘pho ba dang ma ‘ongs pa’i skye ba ji rnyed mkhyen pa);
- knowing that the defilements are exhausted or knowing the path and result (zag pa thams cad zad pa nyid du gyur pa’i lam dang ‘bras bu mkhyen pa).
Further Reading
- The Fortunate Aeon: How the Thousand Buddhas Became Enlightened (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1986), Vol. One, 'The Teaching on the Ten Strengths'.