The Mental Factor of Feeling in the Six Consciousnesses

The "feeling" (vedanā) mental factor refers to the receiving and accepting inherent in the six consciousnesses themselves. Receiving and accepting means taking in the object. After taking in the object, there is discernment. Following discernment, the six consciousnesses then generate the emotional feelings of suffering, happiness, and neither-suffering-nor-happiness. The feeling that arises before emotional feelings emerge is the feeling of receiving and accepting the object. For example, after eye-consciousness contacts a visible form, eye-consciousness receives that visible form and accepts it. After accepting it, there is the cognitive and discerning function of perception (saṃjñā), which then gives rise to grasping perception. It is precisely because there is cognition and grasping that feelings of suffering and happiness arise. If there is no cognition, there are no emotional feelings of suffering or happiness; if there is no grasping, the arising of feelings of suffering or happiness also does not occur. Therefore, the scope of the feeling mental factor is somewhat broader than the feeling aggregate (vedanā-skandha) within the five aggregates. The feeling aggregate primarily consists of emotional feelings, including the three types of emotional feelings: suffering, happiness, and neither-suffering-nor-happiness. Regarding the feeling mental factor of the seventh and eighth consciousnesses, there are some differences from the feeling of the six consciousnesses. The seventh and eighth consciousnesses have only neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā); they lack feelings of suffering and happiness and are devoid of emotional coloring. The five universal mental factors (pañca-sarvatraga) associated with each of the eight consciousnesses have many subtle distinctions.