Five individual advantages

The five individual advantages (T. rang 'byor lnga རང་འབྱོར་ལྔ་) are identified within some Tibetan Buddhist ngondro practices as half of the ten advantages of a precious human birth, are:

1. being a human being
2. born in a central land
3. with faculties intact
4. lifestyle not harmful or wrong
5. with faith in the three pitakas

Commentary

Dudjom Rinpoche states:

[The five individual advantages are:]

To be born a human, in a central land, with all one’s faculties complete,

Without a conflicting lifestyle, and with faith in the Dharma.

In other words, in general,

• to have obtained a human body;

and in particular:

• to have been born in a central land in which the Dharma is propagated;
• with all one’s faculties—the five sense doors and so forth—complete, so that one is fit to understand what to adopt and what to avoid;
• without a conflicting lifestyle, in which one would commit, for example, crimes with immediate retribution;
• and with faith in the Buddha, the source of everything that is virtuous, and in his excellent words, the sublime Dharma.

Since these five have come together in oneself and are favorable conditions for accomplishing the Dharma, they are referred to as individual advantages.

See also

• Eight freedoms
• Five circumstantial advantages