No. Quote from Ajahn Anan is exactly the opposite direction of what we teach. If you need an object to be your refuge, your mind is not properly developed: Heart is still and quiet when heart is internally withdrawn, through understanding, from sensual domain, not when it is concentrated on an object that makes it (temporarily) forget about sensuality. And as the Suttas say when they describe the first jhana, piti and sukha are born from that very internal seclusion and safety from sensual domain, not from one's concentration on an object of one's senses (which are WITHIN sensual domain). Thus, anicca, dukkha and anatta are not seen "throughout" the body and sensations. They can only be discerned on the level of the mind, which, as one of the senses, cannot be "observed" by itself, only understood. We use understanding to keep the mind still at all times. That's something that can never become an object for your six senses.

@@HillsideHermitage What if you mind is not fully developed. Then using the breath with your virtue, is not exactly an unwholesome thing to do? I intellectually understand the context of what you say. However I guess when highly developed teachers are saying opposite things then it’s up to me to directly experience it for myself.

@@HillsideHermitage 🙏🙏🙏

@Shaun The mind is properly developed by reading the Suttas, living the precepts, seeing the danger in the slightest fault, knowing the intent behind your smallest actions and enduring the resulting mental states without acting out of them. Sense restraint will cause discomfort and you have to refrain from managing it and alleviating it by doing the focusing type of meditations, and instead endure it on that mental level until the danger becomes apparent. Meditation objects offer a temporary escape that takes away the symptoms of one's illness but does not uproot an underlying cause. That's why the symptoms (dukkha) need to be sufficiently endured until what is causing them becomes apparent. And for that the mind needs to first stop managing the painful symptoms through meditation techniques, and instead learn how to become immovable WITHIN the pain on its own. So, resorting to various objects that narrow your attention away from the internal discomfort of the mind needs to be abandoned. Hence, the instructions you'll find on this channel go in the opposite direction of what's commonly taught as meditation. (On a side note, in the Suttas anapanasati was taught to people who were at least sotapannas, and even then it was not about focusing on one's breath, but about KNOWLEDGE of breathing and one's INTENT)

@@HillsideHermitage Thank you for taking the time to reply and putting your content out there. I’m going to be honest with you I guess the crux of the issue is it’s very hard to do guard the sense doors all the time. Especially when one has a family, job and lives in a busy capitalist society. I do get temporary relief, as you say when I do meditation. I don’t break the precepts by doing this, but i do get what you are saying this is a dead end and I have to learn to cope on my own without any stabilisation technique.

Even then it's hard to determine what the Buddha actually taught as there's so many different interpretations and translations

@@TwoFootBhikkhu Bodhi wrote the book “What the Buddha Taught”

I was just about to comment this, but someone beat me to it! Goenka says - not to play the game of sensations --- observe with equanimity and develop full body awareness. Although this technique of contemplation can be a good one too! Just need to experiment as Buddha would do I imagine.

🙃🥲🙃😪🙃🤤🙃😐🙃😑🙃🟡