I had a really weird insight while in a nasty mental state. I was very angry and frustrated and I wanted the frustration to go away but that only made the frustration even worse. It spiraled until I reached what Daniel might call a dark jhana. It sucked. I also ended up dissociating quite a bit.

But while I was coming out of it I realised that much of the suffering was coming from a kind of identification and believing in a thought. Namely, 'these sensations are so bad, I need to somehow get out of them. ' 

​​These thoughts are quite different from the actual sensations of suffering which feel like energetic contractions. Not exactly comfortable, but when I notice the thoughts about how bad they are as just thoughts and signals, it they dissolve and the sensations become much less bothersome.



My question now is, how much of what we call suffering is actually just identifying and buying into thoughts about sensations?

And how much of it is not thought but due to sensations and energetic resistance and other contractions?

Yeah, suffering is the belief that things shouldn't be this way. And a whole bunch of other thoughts layered on top of that foundational belief.

Or as shinzen said  Suffering = Pain (negative sensations) * Resistance.... so if you drop resistance down, you still have pain but you don't have much suffering.

Wait, so all suffering is just beliefs and thoughts?<br />​​​​​<br />​I would agree that suffering is resistance but does that resistance necessarily entail thoughts and beliefs? Or is there some actual thing resisting? Or just thoughts about resisting?<br /> 

Suffering is based on beliefs and assumptions - the foundation of what Buddhists call "ignorance." We resist because what we experience is out of phase with our beliefs and assumptions. As for some "thing" that is responsible for resisting - yeah, but that "thing" is belief and assumption.

So if the 'thing that resists is just beliefs and assumptions then what exactly is resistance then? If there is no thing that is resisting?

​​

If I were you, Andrew, I would pursue that line of investigation as if my hair was on fire and the "answer" would save me.

Think of three distinct mechanisms.

The compulsion driven mechanism of seeking reliability in the dyad of experiencing-experience or nama-rupa.
The compulsion driven mechanism of seeking pleasure and avoiding displeasure in the dyad of nama-rupa
The compulsion driven mechanism of seeking control on and within the dyad of nama-rupa

When these mechanisms are active and can be sensed, our natural innate wisdom produces the experience of fear, misery, disgust, desperation (or some combination thereof). Our innate wisdom does not get along with these mechanisms. Dukkha is the friction between wisdom and these defilements / psychic irritants (or kleshas). These mechanisms are extremely habitual and heavily practiced. Most of the time they go unnoticed and we dont experience dukkha. But at various points in our life story they become strong enough to be noticed or our sensitivity increases. Sometimes this sensitivity stays increased. The external trigger could be seeing a sick man, an old man, a dead body, or imposter syndrome in the high paying job we recently got .... and then we go looking for a solution to the dukkha. Some people search for the solution at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. Some people search for the solution in meditation. 

Meditation leads to increased sensitivity towards these mechanisms, thus it leads to increased dukkha at some point. We can either get rid of the sensitivity or of the defilements. We can either walk away from meditation or get 4 path moments.

To answer your question - The defilements are mental activity, wisdom is mental activity, dukkha is also mental activity. Its all mental activity.

Andrew,

In her talk "Historical Background of Suttas in brief - Foundations of Mindfulness (Middle Length Sayings No. 10)",  Ayya Khema, while explaining the "contemplating mind as mind" part of the sutta,  talks about thinking and dukkha, with a slightly different perspective.  If I hear correctly, she says ( 1:02:30):

"[...] Contemplating mind as mind means that the realization arises that the mind is thinking. And with it [...] can very easily,  in meditation,  arise the understanding that it's totally unnecessary [...]  It's unnecessary to think, because we will eventually realize that thinking is dukkha, thinking is not pleasant. It is irritation, it is movement, and every movement has irritation in-built. So, to be able to just be, not "not be", but be, without thinking, is far more peaceful and restful [...]"

The whole talk is incredibly interesting.

Every sensation is some variety of contraction — in other words, suffering.

Thoughts take the form of sounds and feelings. Thought-sounds are imaginary voices. Thought-feelings are these ephemeral wisps in 3D space that have the texture of meaningness and intelligence. Neither thought-sounds nor thought-feelings are, in themselves, a problem. They never go away.

I'd say that thoughts, in themselves, are not a big part of the suffering we feel. Rather, most of our suffering comes from resistance to experience. "Resistance" includes both (1) our attempts to induce and control our behavior and (2) the chronic restlessness that pervades all moments. Resistance goes away with time and practice.

Like Chris said, our resistance is premised on the assumption that resistance is useful. But it's not! That's the mindfuck. And, in addition, there's no one that's responsible for the resistance, and no one who can decide to stop resisting. Crazy.

Right, the way we drop resistance (and the dukka it creates) is to see it very clearly many many times. Each time we see how  our belief that resistance is helpful creates dukka, it gets weakened a little. Sometimes we see it so clearly that it gets weakened a lot. 

Buddhism is basically a lot of approaches for untangling this suffering...

For example, noting is in part a way to stop resisting what is actually occuring. When you note something, you have to admit its happening.

As another example, one of the classic ways to reduce suffering is to investigate the difference between the "tone" of the experience and the "reactivity" to the experience. For example, normally we feel discomfort and we are averse to that experience. But it's also possible to just experience momentary discomfort. Likewise, normally we feel pleasure and we crave more. But it's also possible to just experience pleasure. And most of the time we are experiencing many neutral sensations that we just ignore. But it's also possible to just feel the simple neutral experience.  So a good meditation practice can be just sitting, watching positive, negative, and neutral "tones" of experience arise... and then looking to see if there is any aversion, clinging, or ignoring. A buddha experiences lots of + - 0 tones, but doesn't fall into aversion, clinging, or ignoring.