| | One of my main teachers discourages meditating on the heart beat also. As I recall, that advice comes by way of Sayadaw U Pandita. The heart beat is the only primary object of meditation I've been told to avoid, because it's possible to screw up the heart beat by making it too conscious -- or such is the belief. I don't know any more than that, but I've tended to avoid it. Because, that's just not a problem I'm looking for, and there's no lack of other meditation objects. My personal favorites are the rising and falling of the breath in the abdomen, the whole body field and the ringing noise in my left ear (though that ringing noise can be a tough master for some; personally, I find the vedana gets pretty neutral with close attention, but others find it helplessly unpleasant) or the pitter patter of my ear drum, which is more subtle and I always find reassuring for some reason; for jhana practice, I like starting out with the sensations at the nostrils. Honestly, I probably shift primary objects too frequently, but some objects seem better for arousing specific faculties or factors.
Personal experience is that as access concentration really ramps up, detecting the heart beat in the chest becomes quite difficult anyway. |