Vedana is an immediate movement in the mind. We use the word "feeling" because unfortunately "feeling" is more or less the best translation that anybody knows in English, but the word "feeling" has a lot of different meanings. One meaning of feeling is we have a feeling on our skin. When I'm rubbing my skin I get a feeling. Another meaning of feeling is an emotional feeling. We feel love, we feel anger, that's an emotional feeling. Now, Buddhist translators have decided feeling is going to used for Vedana. But it's not a feeling on the skin and it's not an emotional feeling either. It's a movement in the mind of either pleasantness, unpleasantness or neutrality.
I'll give you an example. We're sitting here and I'm talking. I notice a Western fellow outside and he's waving his arms. As I see the guy waving his arms, I might have a slightly unpleasant Vedana - reaction to that, which hopefully I'm going to let go of quickly because I'm busy talking to you. But seeing the guy "moves" me in a way, distracts me, so I have a slight negative reaction, an immediate feeling. But I'm able to drop it very quickly so it doesn't go into aversion, into an emotional feeling of anger. And then he keeps waving and I start treating it as a neutral Vedana. Every time I notice him it just becomes more neutral to me.
Now one of you or all of you happen to see that I'm getting distracted by someone out there and you turn and look. One of you sees he's your favorite cousin! You haven't seen him in 5 years, and your cousin is out there waving at you. What sort of movement is going to come up in your mind? Pleasant, my favorite cousin! You know this kind of pleasant, initial movement in your mind. Now believe me what's going to happen next for most, if not all of you, is that that Vedana is going to turn unpleasant very quickly because you're in a silent retreat and you can't talk to him. And he shouldn't be there, he shouldn't be bothering you! These are movements in our mind, very quick, after which thoughts or emotions may arise. So this is the Vedana that we're talking about.
You go to supper on Day 8 of your first retreat. Instead of fruit salad you saw bread rolls. What happened? You had a movement in your mind? Now, it's all three Vedanas, pleasantness, unpleasantness and neutrality, coming up for various people. Some people have been dreaming about a sandwich all day, bread, bread, they have been craving bread. And when they see it, oh, what a pleasant Vedana. Somebody else is just so addicted to the fruit salad, they are so disappointed to see bread. They have a negative Vedana. Somebody else who has been doing the reflections very well has a neutral Vedana, its just food, no big deal, I don't care. So that's another time when you can see this little shift really quickly, it's just what comes up very quickly, the minute you have a contact, eye contact in particular.
With the guy waving his arms, you turn and have eye contact. As I said, you see your cousin, the initial Vedana comes from eye contact, it's pleasant. But then the next Vedana, that unpleasantness that follows, that's not eye contact, that's from mental contact of remembering you're in a retreat and you can't talk to him. So any one of your contacts can bring about Vedana.
You're sitting meditating while they're having this event happening at the school. It's quiet and all of a sudden a loud noise, "Boom". Most people will experience an unpleasant Vedana. But if you can just note "hearing, hearing," it can be neutral, it doesn't have to be unpleasant.
This is what our practice is all about. So much of our unpleasant Vedana can be changed into neutral if we do the practice well. Now with Vedana, too, the exact same eye contact might change due to our own personal experiences. For example when I was eighteen, I had a favorite candy, it was called "Jaw Breakers". It was hard, it was round and you were supposed to suck it until it was soft, it was delicious. I use to carry a box of it and everyone knew I would always have one for them. Every time I saw it in a store - pleasant Vedana - I'd buy one.
But, when I was eighteen I bit too soon, it wasn't soft, and I broke a tooth. I've never had a Jaw Breaker candy since. For years after that when I saw it in a store - unpleasant Vedana - "it shouldn't be there, its breaking people's teeth". Always unpleasant, unpleasant, unpleasant... Ten or fifteen years later, probably even more than fifteen, I saw them on a shelf and my practice was good enough that I could have a neutral Vedana with them. It's just a candy, it's just a part of the Dukkha of Samsara. So the same eye contact shifted due to my experience, from being pleasant for a long time, then becoming unpleasant and then becoming neutral.