Feeling (vedana)
Now that the experience of “not-myself” (the “other”) has been objectified, the need arises to define a specific relationship to it. In the first step of this process, we must arrive at a specific valuation of what stands over and against us as this “other.” An implicit question hangs in the air: is this “other,” friend, enemy or neutral? Is the other—whether a person, a situation, an event or an experience—beneficent, hostile or of indifferent value to “me”? Does it affirm and support my sense of “self”? Is it threatening to my "self"? Or is it neutral and therefore of no particular value either way to the "self" I am trying to be?

We arrive at an answer through an elemental felt sense: we feel rudimentary pleasure at that which confirms our "self," pain at that which calls our "self" into question, and nothing toward that which is irrelevant to our enterprise. Arriving at this kind of valuation brings further definition and solidity into our self-concept.

- (source: Shambhala Sun archives)