Lal: “Sabbe sankhara dukkha” means “All sankhara dukkha.” It does not say “everything” is dukkha.” So, there is nothing “new” there.
That’s right, adding it there as a marker since it provides good elaboration.
Lal: What do you understand by “dukkha?” Is it the feeling of “dukkha vedana“?
I understand that dukkha can be a characteristic, as pointed out in Dukkha in Tilakkhana Is a Characteristic – Not Dukkha Vedanā, However, I think in this context, with Thero’s interpretation, it is more of Dukkha Vedana. In Saccavibhaṅgasutta, dukkha is also referred to as dukkha vedana:
Yaṁ kho, āvuso, kāyikaṁ dukkhaṁ kāyikaṁ asātaṁ kāyasamphassajaṁ dukkhaṁ asātaṁ vedayitaṁ – Physical pain, physical unpleasantness, the painful, unpleasant feeling that’s born from physical contact.
Also want to add a few more things to clarify:
We normally refer Jāti as the mundane, birth. But it seems like in this case the Jāti can refer to anything, even sights, viññana, vedana. In Jātidhammādisuttadasaka, we can see that all these things have jāti, jarā, byādhi, maranaṃ dhamma – liable to birth, decay, death. So it is possible that the jāti, jarā, byādhi, maranaṃ in the first noble truth also applies to these things, and not just the individual rebirth.
And for me it makes sense that these terms dont just apply to the individual because in the second line, it refers to everything: appiyehi sampayogopi dukkho, piyehi vippayogopi dukkho, yampicchaṁ na labhati tampi dukkhaṁ does not just refer to the self, but looks at all phenomenon in the world, which links better to the idea of Jāti of sights, viññana, vedana in the first line of the first noble truth.