Vedanā (Pāli and Sanskrit: वेदना) is an ancient term traditionally translated as either "feeling"[1] or "sensation."[2] In general, vedanā refers to the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations that occur when our internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and the associated consciousness. Vedanā is identified as valence or "hedonic tone" in psychology.
Vedanā is identified within the Buddhist teaching as follows:
In the context of the twelve links, craving for and attachment to vedanā leads to suffering; reciprocally, concentrated awareness and clear comprehension of vedanā can lead to Enlightenment and the extinction of the causes of suffering.
Bhikkhu Bodhi states:
Feeling is the mental factor which feels the object. It is the affective mode in which the object is experienced. The Pali word vedanā does not signify emotion (which appears to be a complex phenomenon involving a variety of concomitant mental factors), but the bare affective quality of an experience, which may be either pleasant, painful or neutral....[3]
Nina van Gorkom states:
When we study the Abhidhamma we learn that 'vedanā' is not the same as what we mean by feeling in conventional language. Feeling is nāma, it experiences something. Feeling never arises alone; it accompanies citta and other cetasikas and it is conditioned by them. Thus, feeling is a conditioned nāma. Citta does not feel, it cognizes the object and vedanā feels...
All feelings have the function of experiencing the taste, the flavour of an object (Atthasālinī, I, Part IV, Chapter I, 109). The Atthasālinī uses a simile in order to illustrate that feeling experiences the taste of an object and that citta and the other cetasikas which arise together with feeling experience the taste only partially. A cook who has prepared a meal for the king merely tests the food and then offers it to the king who enjoys the taste of it:
...and the king, being lord, expert, and master, eats whatever he likes, even so the mere testing of the food by the cook is like the partial enjoyment of the object by the remaining dhammas (the citta and the other cetasikas), and as the cook tests a portion of the food, so the remaining dhammas enjoy a portion of the object, and as the king, being lord, expert and master, eats the meal according to his pleasure, so feeling, being lord, expert and master, enjoys the taste of the object, and therefore it is said that enjoyment or experience is its function.
Thus, all feelings have in common that they experience the 'taste' of an object. Citta and the other accompanying cetasikas also experience the object, but feeling experiences it in its own characteristic way.[4]
The Abhidharma-samuccaya states:
What is the absolutely specific characteristic of vedana? It is to experience. That is to say, in any experience, what we experience is the individual maturation of any positive or negative action as its final result.[5]
Mipham Rinpoche states:[6]
Sensations are defined as impressions.
The aggregate of sensations can be divided into three: pleasant, painful, and neutral. Alternatively, there are five: pleasure and mental pleasure, pain and mental pain, and neutral sensation.
In terms of support, there are six sensations resulting from contact...
Alexander Berzin describes this mental factors as feeling (tshor-ba, Skt. vedanā) some level of happiness. He states:[7]
When we hear the word “feeling” in a Buddhist context, it’s only referring to this: feeling some level of happy or unhappy, somewhere on the spectrum. So, on the basis of pleasant contacting awareness—it comes easily to mind—we feel happy. Happiness is: we would like it to continue. And, on the basis of unpleasant contacting awareness—it doesn’t come easily to the mind, we basically want to get rid of it—we feel unhappiness. “Unhappiness” is the same word as “suffering” (mi-bde-ba, Skt. duhkha). Unhappiness is: I don’t want to continue this; I want to be parted from this.
And neutral contacting awareness. We feel neutral about it—neither want to continue it nor to discontinue it...
Vedanā is the distinct valence or "hedonic tone" of emotional psychology, neurologically identified and isolated.
Contemporary teachers Bhikkhu Bodhi and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche clarify the relationship between vedanā (often translated as "feelings") and Western notions of "emotions."
Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:
"The Pali word vedanā does not signify emotion (which appears to be a complex phenomenon involving a variety of concomitant mental factors), but the bare affective quality of an experience, which may be either pleasant, painful or neutral."[3]
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche writes:
"In case [i.e. within the Buddhist teachings] 'feeling' is not quite our ordinary notion of feeling. It is not the feeling we take so seriously as, for instance, when we say, 'He hurt my feelings.' This kind of feeling that we take so seriously belongs to the fourth and fifth skandhas of concept and consciousness."[8]
In general, the Pali canon describes vedanā in terms of three "modes" and six "classes." Some discourses discuss alternate enumerations including up to 108 kinds.
Throughout canonical discourses (Sutta Pitaka), the Buddha teaches that there are three modes of vedanā:
Elsewhere in the Pali canon it is stated that there are six classes of vedanā, corresponding to sensations arising from contact (Skt: sparśa; Pali: phassa) between an internal sense organ (āyatana; that is, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind), an external sense object and the associated consciousness (Skt.: vijnana; Pali: viññāna). (See Figure 1.) In other words:
In a few discourses, a multitude of kinds of vedana are alluded to ranging from two to 108, as follows:
In the wider Pali literature, of the above enumerations, the post-canonical Visuddhimagga highlights the five types of vedanā: physical pleasure (sukha); physical displeasure (dukkha); mental happiness (somanassa); mental unhappiness (domanassa); and, equanimity (upekkhā).[12]
Vedanā is a pivotal phenomenon in the following frequently identified frameworks of the Pali canon:
Vedanā is one of the five aggregates (Skt.: skandha; Pali: khandha) of clinging (Skt., Pali: upādāna; see Figure 2 to the right). In the canon, as indicated above, feeling arises from the contact of a sense organ, sense object and consciousness.
In the Chain of Conditioned Arising (Skt: pratītyasamutpāda; Pali: ), the Buddha explains that:
In the post-canonical 5th-century Visuddhimagga, feeling (vedana) is identified as simultaneously and inseparably arising from consciousness (viññāṇa) and the mind-and-body (nāmarūpa).[14] On the other hand, while this text identifies feeling as decisive to craving and its mental sequelae leading to suffering, the conditional relationship between feeling and craving is not identified as simultaneous nor as being karmically necessary.[15]
Throughout the canon, there are references to the four "foundations of mindfulness" (satipaṭṭhāna): the body (kāya), feelings (vedanā), mind states (citta) and mental experiences (dhammā). These four foundations are recognized among the seven sets of qualities conducive to enlightenment (bodhipakkhiyādhammā). The use of vedanā and the other satipaṭṭhāna in Buddhist meditation practices can be found in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the Ānāpānasati Sutta.
Each mode of vedanā is accompanied by its corresponding underlying tendency or obsession (anusaya). The underlying tendency for pleasant vedanā is the tendency toward lust, for unpleasant, the tendency toward aversion, and for neither pleasant nor unpleasant, the tendency toward ignorance.[16]
In the Canon it is stated that meditating with concentration (samādhi) on vedanā can lead to deep mindfulness (sati) and clear comprehension () (see Table to the right).[17] With this development, one can experience directly within oneself the reality of impermanence (anicca) and the nature of attachment (upādāna). This in turn can ultimately lead to liberation of the mind (nibbāna).
Alternate translations for the term vedana are:
"'The six classes of feeling should be known.' Thus was it said. In reference to what was it said? Dependent on the eye & forms there arises consciousness at the eye. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition there is feeling. Dependent on the ear & sounds there arises consciousness at the ear. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition there is feeling. Dependent on the nose & aromas there arises consciousness at the nose. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition there is feeling. Dependent on the tongue & flavors there arises consciousness at the tongue. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition there is feeling. Dependent on the body & tactile sensations there arises consciousness at the body. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition there is feeling. Dependent on the intellect & ideas there arises consciousness at the intellect. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition there is feeling. 'The six classes of feeling should be known.' Thus was it said...." (Thanissaro, 1998.)For other references to the "six classes of feeling/sensation," see the Sattaṭṭhāna Sutta (SN 22.57) (Thanissaro, 1997b), and the Vedanā Sutta (SN 25.5) (Thanissaro, 2004).
'Dependent on the eye & forms there arises consciousness at the eye. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition, there arises what is felt either as pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. If, when touched by a feeling of pleasure, one relishes it, welcomes it, or remains fastened to it, then one's passion-obsession gets obsessed. If, when touched by a feeling of pain, one sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats one's breast, becomes distraught, then one's resistance-obsession gets obsessed. If, when touched by a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain, one does not discern, as it actually is present, the origination, passing away, allure, drawback, or escape from that feeling, then one's ignorance-obsession gets obsessed....'