Four powers

Four powers or four strengths (Tib. བཤགས་པའི་སྟོབས་བཞི་, shakpé tob shyi, Wyl. bshags pa'i stobs bzhi) — the essential elements in the practice of confession.

1. power of support (རྟེན་གྱི་སྟོབས་, ten gyi tob, rten gyi stobs)
2. power of regret (ཉེས་བྱས་སུན་འབྱིན་གྱི་སྟོབས་, nyejé sünjin gyi tob, nyes byas sun ‘byin gyi stobs)
3. power of resolve (སྡོམ་པའི་སྟོབས་, dompé tob, sdom pa’i stobs)
4. power of action as an antidote (གཉེན་པོ་ཀུན་སྤྱོད་ཀྱི་སྟོབས་, nyenpo künchö kyi tob, gnyen po kun spyod kyi stobs)

The Sutra Teaching the Four Factors says:

O Maitreya, bodhisattva mahasattva, if you possess four factors, you will overcome harmful actions that have been committed and accumulated. What are these four? The action of total rejection, the action as remedy, the power of restoration, and the power of support.

Further Reading

• Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher (Boston: Shambhala, Revised edition, 1998), pages 265-270.
• Khenpo Ngawang Palzang, A Guide to the Words of My Perfect Teacher, (Boston: Shambhala, 2004) pages 226-232.

Teachings Given to the Rigpa Sangha

• Khandro Rinpoche, Bodhgaya, India, 26 February 2019, pm

Internal Links

• The Sutra Teaching the Four Factors