Background Awarness?

[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?

[Goofaholix]

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.

[porpoise]

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".

[pulga]

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 [b].) 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)