The Five Powers

The Five Powers is a toolkit for personal transformation.

Trust + Energy + Mindfulness + Calm + Wisdom

It can all feel a bit too much. We find ourselves occupied, morning to night, with reacting, responding and coping with uncontrollable and often challenging circumstances. How can we rise above stress, anxiety and frustration? How do we perform a restart? Is it possible to radically transform our daily life? And how might we invite deeper meaning and freedom into our lives?

For many, the gateway to the Buddhist teachings is Mindfulness. And Mindfulness is indeed one of the Five Powers that are regarded as the original teachings of the Buddha:

1. Trust
2. Energy
3. Mindfulness
4. Calm
5. Wisdom

How do these Five Powers help us to discover personal peace and freedom? We begin with Trust, a leap of faith, letting go of the sides and getting into the stream of life. But in order to swim well, we also need Energy to overcome resistance and keep going. Mindfulness brings our awareness to where we are on the path in each moment, to notice life in its rich detail. Inner freedom expands, amplified by the peaceful power of Calm. We focus on what is right in front of us, we listen intently, we are patient with life. And Wisdom provides our inner knowing, our compass.

With stunning artwork throughout by the acclaimed artist Alessandro Sanna, The Five Powers is a guide for those who seek the freedom to be themselves, to love fully and to dance with the unexpected and embrace the everyday.

About the Author

Dr. Stephen Fulder was born in London in 1946. A graduate of Oxford University, he has a PhD in molecular biology and was a lecturer at London University. He is also an expert in herbal and complementary medicine, on which he has published fourteen books. Stephen has been involved in dharma practice since 1975. He has spent years in India, and has been guided by a variety of teachers from India, Burma, and the West. He has been teaching mindful meditation for a quarter of a century, mostly in Israel but also abroad, and leads many retreats, courses, and classes annually, especially for advanced practitioners. He is also the founder and senior teacher of Tovana, the Israeli Insight Meditation Society, the largest organisation of its kind in Israel, which has brought mindfulness, Vipassana meditation, and dharma teachings to tens of thousands of participants.