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Aṅguttara Nikāya · Discourse 4.155

The Power of Reflection

Paṭisaṅkhānabalasutta — Indriyavagga — the sixteenth chapter of the Fours

Setting
None stated; the Indriyavagga gives no location for this discourse, and it is addressed to the mendicants directly
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
AN 4.153 with the first two items exchanged a second time
Length
under a minute to read
Northern parallel
The pairing of reflection with development is a standard two-item set elsewhere in the Aṅguttara; this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★★★☆☆ — the last of the chapter’s short discourses, and its first pair is the least familiar of the three

Why this discourse

Reflection, development, blamelessness, inclusiveness. The rotation closes with a pair that readers are least likely to recognize: paṭisaṅkhānabala and bhāvanābala, the power of reviewing something and the power of cultivating something. Together they name the two halves of every practical instruction the collection gives — think it over, and then do it repeatedly.

Reading guide

The teaching in one sentence

Reflection, development, blamelessness, and inclusiveness are powers.

Reflection and development

Paṭisaṅkhāna is reviewing, reckoning up, considering. It is built from the same root as saṅkhā, counting or reckoning, and the sense is of going over something deliberately to see what it amounts to.

The verb appears constantly in the collection’s practical instructions. Reflect properly on the food you eat; consider your own conduct again and again; review what you are doing by body, speech, and mind. It is the tradition’s standard word for taking stock.

Bhāvanā is development, cultivation — literally causing something to come into being. It is the word for meditation practice in general and for anything done repeatedly until it becomes established.

The pair is one the Aṅguttara uses elsewhere as a set of two, and the division is a clean one. Reflection is what you do once and consciously; development is what you do many times until it no longer requires deciding.

Why they belong in a list of powers

Both are activities rather than qualities, and that is what makes them interesting here. The other lists in this rotation named things a person has. This one names two things a person does.

The definition of a power — not overthrown by its opposite — applies differently to an activity. What overthrows reflection is not a rival quality but the habit of not looking, and what overthrows development is stopping.

So the power version of these two is the capacity to keep doing them when there is no occasion forcing it. That is a recognizable and difficult thing, and it is a fair candidate for a list of strengths.

It is also the pair that most obviously produces the other two. A person who reviews their conduct is on the way to blamelessness; a person who develops what they have reviewed is on the way to everything else the collection describes.

The rotation, complete

Three lists: wisdom and energy; mindfulness and immersion; reflection and development. All three end with blamelessness and inclusiveness.

Set out together, the rotating pairs cover understanding, meditation, and method — what you know, how you sit, and how you work. The fixed pair covers conduct and other people.

That is a genuinely wide account of what makes a practitioner strong, and no single discourse in the chapter contains it. It exists only in the arrangement of three.

Whether the arrangement was designed to say this or whether three variant lists were simply shelved together is a question the text does not answer, and this reading guide has said so on each of the three pages rather than deciding it here.

What has been left out

Faith. The faculties in AN 4.151 began with it, and none of the three power-lists in this rotation includes it — though AN 4.152, under the same heading, is entirely the faculties with faith at their head.

So within four consecutive discourses the collection gives four lists of four powers, one of which begins with faith and three of which do not mention it.

Nothing should be built on that. The lists came from different places and were filed together by number, and this is exactly the sort of pattern that looks meaningful and is produced by shelving.

It is worth saying because the temptation to read significance into what a list omits runs through this whole chapter, and the chapter’s first discourse already supplied the correction: wisdom was missing from the faculties for no reason except that five items do not fit in the Fours.

Where it sits

Fifth of ten, and the last short discourse in the chapter.

What follows is a different kind of material entirely. AN 4.156 gives the four incalculable stretches of an eon; AN 4.157 gives two illnesses and a description of monastic ambition sharp enough to be uncomfortable; AN 4.158 is Sāriputta’s four-point self-diagnostic; AN 4.159 is a narrative; AN 4.160 is the longest and most structural discourse in this stretch of the Fours.

A reader who has come this far through five pages of lists has done the hard part of the chapter.

Key terms

paṭisaṅkhāna — “reflection”, reviewing — from the root for reckoning; going over something deliberately to see what it amounts to.
bhāvanā — “development”, cultivation — literally causing to come into being; the general word for practice done repeatedly.
paṭisaṅkhā yoniso — “reflecting properly” — the formula that opens the collection’s standard instructions on using the requisites.
anavajjabala — “the power of blamelessness” — third here as in the two preceding discourses.
saṅgahabala — “the power of inclusiveness” — fourth here as in the two preceding discourses; the rotation’s other constant.

The text

The discourse in full: four powers, named. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).

Four powers

§1“Mendicants, there are these four powers. What four? The powers of reflection, development, blamelessness, and inclusiveness. These are the four powers.”

· · ·

Self-check quiz

Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.

Question 1 of 10
What four powers does this discourse name?
Correct: B. The third and last turn of the rotation.
Question 2 of 10
What does paṭisaṅkhāna mean?
Correct: B. From the same root as the word for counting.
Question 3 of 10
What does bhāvanā literally mean?
Correct: B. The general word for practice done repeatedly.
Question 4 of 10
How does the guide divide the pair?
Correct: B. A clean division, and one the Aṅguttara uses elsewhere as a set of two.
Question 5 of 10
What makes these two unusual in a list of powers?
Correct: B. The other lists in the rotation named things a person has.
Question 6 of 10
What overthrows them, on that reading?
Correct: B. So the power version is the capacity to keep doing them with no occasion forcing it.
Question 7 of 10
What do the three rotating pairs cover together?
Correct: B. And the fixed pair covers conduct and other people.
Question 8 of 10
Where does that wide account exist?
Correct: B. Which is why the three should be read at one sitting.
Question 9 of 10
Which item from AN 4.151 is missing from all three power-lists?
Correct: B. Though AN 4.152, under the same heading, begins with it.
Question 10 of 10
What does the guide say should be built on that absence?
Correct: B. AN 4.151 already supplied the correction: wisdom was missing because five items do not fit.
Answered 0 of 10 · Correct 0

Further reading

← PreviousAN 4.154 · The Power of Mindfulness