Yes. That's exactly it.
Basically buddhist texts are written in a kind of code that sounds philosophical or religious -- and of course they work on that level -- but the real essence of it is how they practically get applied to our actually lived life in our actual body.
So "dukka" is basically "stress"
"absence of greed, aversion, and indifference" is basically "tranquility"
"meditation" means many things but it includes "cultivating equanimity"
etc.
Once you learn how to decode buddhism, it becomes very very practical. You might like this series of talks by John Peacock
https://www.audiodharma.org/series/207/
Oh, very cool, someone also took notes on all these lectures and posted them in a file:
http://dmail.awakenetwork.com/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint/13067-buddhism-before-the-theravada-notes
I would say that buddhist practices are about developing basic sanity and as an co-occurance there are deeper/subtler insights into the nature of self... but many times people put the cart before the horse and think that buddhism is about insights into the nature of self that "give you" basic sanity.
In reality, practice is exactly as you describe: you become of where you are physically-emotionally-intellectually "knotted", you put awareness on that feeling of stress/ill will/resistance (which can be difficult, it can be "difficult to find" or "scary to investigate"), but then when that experience can rest in awareness, without us wanting to change it or push it away, then the body-mind figures out how to understand the experience and let it go. This last stage tends to "happen" rather than being something that we make happen or "do".
"Vipassina" is "clear seeing" -- in meditation we clearly see our stresses, how they are created and held in the body-mind, and this leads to "nibbana" which is the the "extinquishing" of the stresses.
Hope this helps!