tshor ba - Feeling

The seventh link, triggered by contact, is tshor ba - feeling, vedana in Sanskrit.

tshor is the verb to feel, so feeling is created by adding the ba, this is a very common construct in Tibetan to make new words from verbs.

In the Wheel of Life this is represented by the man getting an arrow into his eye. This is a very graphic image, indeed. Due to the contact via the consciousness of the six sense fields and the objects, then feelings arise: positive, negative, or neutral. Pleasure, pain or neutral feelings arise -- not that also neutral feelings are considered feelings.

The reason for the eye is that the eye is very sensitive, even very small conditions will create feelings. Similarly, feelings will drive us, and we will see in the next link what the feelings will give rise to.