And on 30 day courses in the Goenka tradition, there are instructions to observe this area for small periods of time...but not for too long becuase the idea seems to be that huge difilements, sleeping kilesas (bhavo sankharas as Goenka terms them) come out from there. And you can bring up some crazy stuff you aren´t ready for if you focus there for too long.

U Thein now advised switching over to contemplation of phyit-pyet on the heart only. This proved easy, and if concentration slackened it was found possible to restore it by inducing greater speed. U Thein was surprised that there was still no physical pain. I suggested that I had had my share of dukkha when meditating as a hermit in the Himalayas. He let it go at that. But the very next day proved my theory wrong. There were violent stabs of pain like red-hot needles and always, it seemed, on the tenderest parts of the anatomy. They got worse and worse. They recalled Mara's assaults on the Buddha the night he attained enlightenment. I did not dare to move lest they should stop before they departed naturally, and repeated almost aloud and almost violently 'phyit- pyet', taking deep breaths to make the pain bearable. A stimulant to greater effort was how U Thein had explained them. Right, more effort there should be and the 'phyit-pyet' flowed fast and furious; one would hardly have called it successful meditation, but it was certainly vigorous. The javelin thrusts were interspersed with worms tickling almost unbearably, but the pain was worse than the tickling. However, at last both the stabs and the worms got fewer and finally died away, and I turned to contemplate with greater equanimity the phyit-pyet on the heart.

As I looked mentally the heart turned into a whirling top, faster, faster, faster! It seemed to be drawing the rest of the body into it. I looked on fascinated. Then all of a sudden, without any warning, it disintegrated, leaving only a sea of atoms and a rather exhausted body floating at peace upon that sea. I do not know how long I lay, too enthralled to move. But the drama gradually ended and concentration became normal again.

U Thein was delighted. A little more pain, I thought, and his pleasure would be complete. And that night in fact brought what he hoped. I woke about 1 a.m. with the feeling I had been meditating instead of sleeping, and a pain round the heart which was only just bearable. The story of Christ on the Cross came into mind and gathered a meaning not understood before. However, the body was relaxed and remained like that for about three hours, when there came the dream I always get when a little bit more of the ego is being chipped off. I did not get up at the 4 a.m. bell, but waited until the pain had completely subsided about 5.30, when I did the usual yoga exercises.

U Thein was now completely confident. Something of the asavas, the basic tendencies with which we are born, is discarded with each step. But there is especial danger if one lingers at the second step, this first glimpse of anatta in actual experience. It is the danger of getting proud and conceited. He himself had experienced this danger.

The day after this, the processes of elimination started working again smoothly as if they had never stopped, and I saw that U Thein had been right in advising against purgatives (which, incidentally, do not form part of my first-aid kit). Meditation proceeded peacefully, and once again the heart became dissolved in that sea of atoms, or waves of creation and destruction. Then imaginary worms became little troublesome and I began to hope Mara and his red-hot needles would not return, until I remembered that the brain was now dissolved and that there was no 'I' to have either hope or fear. That evening U Thein's last doubts were removed. The real work, he said, now commenced-1 thought it had commenced after the Vipassana ceremony, but it was clear what he meant.
The aim now was to consolidate from day to day the experience