Background Awarness?

On the cultivation of insight/wisdom
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Uilium
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Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2012 9:08 pm

Background Awarness?

Post by Uilium »

I've never heard about it and I always hear you can't be aware of two things at the same time but when I meditate I become aware of a weak backround awareness. Is there such a thing or am I tripping?
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Goofaholix
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Re: Background Awarness?

Post by Goofaholix »

Uilium wrote:I've never heard about it and I always hear you can't be aware of two things at the same time but when I meditate I become aware of a weak backround awareness. Is there such a thing or am I tripping?
Awareness is constantly rapidly moving from object to object, in theory only one at a time, because of the speed it is effectively being aware of multiple objects at the same time and that is how it seems to us.
Pronouns (no self / not self)
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.”
― Ajahn Chah
Spiny Norman
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Re: Background Awarness?

Post by Spiny Norman »

Goofaholix wrote:
Uilium wrote:I've never heard about it and I always hear you can't be aware of two things at the same time but when I meditate I become aware of a weak backround awareness. Is there such a thing or am I tripping?
Awareness is constantly rapidly moving from object to object, in theory only one at a time, because of the speed it is effectively being aware of multiple objects at the same time and that is how it seems to us.
The other explanation is that there is an "awareness gradient" - we are more aware of objects at the centre of our attention than of objects at the periphery of our attention. So for example while I'm typing this I'm more aware of the text on this screen than of the room I'm in - the "background".
Buddha save me from new-agers!
pulga
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Re: Background Awarness?

Post by pulga »

Uilium wrote:I've never heard about it and I always hear you can't be aware of two things at the same time but when I meditate I become aware of a weak backround awareness. Is there such a thing or am I tripping?
Much of Ven. Ñanavira's thinking is based upon this aspect of experience.

Real = {Present ...........Imaginary = {Absent
.........{Central ............................ {Peripheral
.........{Actual .,,,,,,,..................... {Possible

(The disjunctions 'central/peripheral' and 'actual/possible' [or 'certain/possible'] represent two slightly different aspects of the more general 'present/absent': the former is as it is in strict reflexion, the latter is as it is in abstract judgement or discursive reflection—see MANO .) Although, relative to the imaginary of mental experience, five-base experience is real, yet, relative to what is central in a given field of five-base experience, whatever is peripheral in that field is already beginning to partake of the nature of the imaginary. In general, the further removed a thing is from the centre of consciousness the less real it is, and therefore the more imaginary. In mental experience proper, however, where there is more or less explicit withdrawal of attention from reality (see MANO), what is central in the field is, precisely, an image (which may be plural), with more imaginary images in the periphery. (Shorter Note on Náma)
"Dhammā=Ideas. This is the clue to much of the Buddha's teaching." ~ Ven. Ñanavira, Commonplace Book
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