What is Dukkha?

Our ongoing experience is a tangled mess. We have never in our multiple decades of being alive developed the skill to look at it, untangle it, examine its components and understand experientially, first hand, how all of it fits together. Typically what we call Dukkha is actually Dukkha vedana - the negative valence associated with compounded experience (with tangled sub components). A structured meditation program delivers to us a pedagogical scaffolding which we can use to first hone the skills necessary to see the tangled mess, its components, the interrelationship between components .... so that we start to get a clear sense of where the Dukkha Vedana comes from. Once we engage in such a meditation program, some of its exercises in their execution open up the opportunity to 'see' Dukkha for what it actually is. So at a gross level ... I feel horrible is Dukkha At a subtler level .... Something is happening in the mind ... it carries negative valence ... or dukkha vedana, thus that is dukkha At a very clear subtlest possible level we can pin point the precise mental movements from which emerges this negative valence. And then we know experientially what dukkha actually is, and then we can also see that we have some degree of say and play in it.

1. I decide to place my attention on my right elbow
2. ​​​​​​​Associated with this decision is a sense of ownership of the decision and its outcomes
3. My attention does not remain on my elbow
4. ​​​​​​​My sense of ownership of my own faculties is challenged
5. My sense of reliability of my own faculties is challenged
6. I discover that I cannot simply let go of my sense of ownership
7. ​​​​​​​I discover that I cannot simply let go of my search for reliability
8. Both of the above come from a series of sticky cognitive 'habits' .... habits that I never chose, but there they are
9. The presence of these habits (or defilements) when they meet the realization that these habits are not appropriate .... causes a mental strain, a friction .... this friction is Dukkha, it has a negative valence called Dukkha Vedana. It is present in all experiences ubiquitously across all aspects of our lives.

Now we have two choices:

1. Let go of intelligence, wisdom, realization capability, turn into a robot driven by defilements
2. ​​​​Let go of the defilements, stop powering them over and over until they are deprived of the fuel they need to survive

​​​​​​​So we are already smartWe are also defiled And thus we experience dukkha Meditation is all about increasing the smartness to such a level that the mind cleanses itself of the defilements In the process of increasing the smartness, we keep seeing the defilements, and we keep getting the friction, except now ... its at magnified levels, but our ability to let go of the defilements does not increase in lock step with the smartness ... so for periods of time we keep getting heightened friction and heightened negative valence associated with that friction. This is called the dukkha nana. After a nice and proper sufficiently strong dose of the dukkha nana we are willing to let go of the defilements, after we have seen the result of what's happening continuously due to hanging on to the defilements ... we stop powering them .... and we get path moments (edited) And no amount of intellectual engagement with this is going to deliver any satisfactory outcome. In fact all of this is so counterintuitive to our ordinary mundane experience that it is difficult to accept or even grasp intellectually. The ordinary, mundane view is: I did not get the promotion I wanted .... therefore I feel like shit I did not get the girl I wanted ... therefore I feel like shit I want pizza! ... there is no money! .... therefore I feel like shit! This conception of dukkha is ordinary, it is mundane. And it is wrong! The only thing that helps is a little bit of theory and a fuckton of practice. Split up the theory into exercises that develop skills of testing hypothesis, and small testable hypothesis. Follow a very structured, methodical program with a lot of discipline and diligence ... and .... Boom! Gate gate gate gate ... paragate, parasamgate ..... Bodhi! ..... Svaha! (edited) A post with a few ideas of working with the Dukkha Nanas: ​​​​​​​https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/osqhcg/vipassana_the_progress_of_insight_part_3_dukkha/

The formatting has gone for a toss on copying from reddit. Will come back to it later to fix it.