The analysis of feeling (vedanā)

Today’s talk is the first part in a series of Dhamma talks on the analysis of vedanā. Here, vedană can be translated as feeling in English.

There are many discourses (sutta) on feeling, such as the discourses in the Connected Discourses on Feeling (Vedanä-samyutta). There is also a chapter about feeling in the Greater Discourse on the Foundation of Mindfulness (Mahāsatipatthāna-sutta). I will extract the essence from these and other discourses.

Every day, we encounter pleasant or unpleasant feeling in our mind stream. We all in the world usually follow these feelings, and carry out good or bad action. Due to those feelings, we continue to whirl in the cycle of rebirth and death (samsāra). When we accomplish good actions, we can enjoy the good results of these actions (like having a healthy body, and so on). We also feel comfortable and happy in samsāra.

Not knowing the truth about these feelings, we attach and cling to them, and so remain in samsāra. To cut off the attachment to feeling, we need to learn its real nature and study it in detail.

As you all know, there are five aggregates. They are

1) Aggregate of materiality (body) (rūpakkhandha)

2) Aggregate of feeling (vedanäkkhandha)

3) Aggregate of perception (saññākkhandha)

4) Aggregate of mental formations (sankhārakkhandha)

5) Aggregate of consciousness (viññāņakkhandha).

The first aggregate is material (rūpa), while the remaining ones are mental phenomena (nāma) which are divided into four distinct categories.

Feeling is a very significant phenomenon, so it must be divided and separated as a distinct category. Perception (saññā) is categorized in the next position because it can give support to feeling. Due to perception as the cause, feeling arises.

Due to feeling as the cause, the mind recognizes and perceives. Due to that perception as the cause, one does good and bad actions; and they are mental formations (sankhārakkhandha). All these feelings, perception and mental formations depend on consciousness (viññānakkhandha).

So the Buddha analyzed the mind (nama) into these four categories, with material (rūpa) as another category. These five aggregates are classified in such way that we can know these natural truths clearly.

Now, let us consider feeling, which is called vedanā in Pāļi. What is this thing called vedanā? Normally, Myanmar people link vedanā only with disease or unpleasant sensation. When they have an uncomfortable physical feeling, they say “Vedanā has arisen”. This is not correct. In fact, there are three types of feelings: pleasant feeling (sukha vedanā),unpleasant feeling (dukkha vedanā), and neither pleasant nor unpleasant feeling (adukkhamasukha vedanā).

The Buddha delivered many discourses on feeling such as those in the vedanā-samyutta in the Book of Connected Discourses (Samyutta Nikāya). The word samyutta means ‘connected’. In this book, the discourses with the similar subject are grouped together. The discourses about feeling (vedanā) are grouped together and called the Vedana-samyutta. Of course, in addition to vedana, the Buddha points out other dhammas as well.

We have to clearly understand, study, and comprehend feeling. Only then can we contemplate it in the correct way. Feeling is distinctly categorized as one of the five aggregates. But there is no such special classification for the 12 sense bases (āyatana) and 18 elements (dhātu). In the key doctrine of Dependent Origination (Paticcasamuppāda), there is the following sentence: “Vedanāpaccayā tanha” (Due to feeling, craving arises). Because of this fact, feeling should be comprehended thoroughly and understood completely (pariññā).

In fact, feelings are to be known, but not to be abandoned. The reason for this is that feeling is present in all kinds of consciousness (citta).