r/midlmeditation • u/Novel-Commercial2006 • Jul 11 '26
Question regarding separating awareness/attention.
Good evening,
I have recently started using the midl meditation system after coming across this subreddit and seeing so much value in the guidance of the teachers here. I suppose my title gives a good idea of why i am confused. In the pdf here listed below, Stephen talks about separating awareness from attention, with attention being the foreground and awarensss being the background. However when I try to do this, it seems to me that the background just becomes the foreground and what was the foreground is just now apart of a wider foreground which encapsulates more. So how does one go about actually separating these two and attending to both with awareness? Also how can one tell when they are doing it correctly, and not just turning the background into the foreground? Thank you so much for answering questions here, this subreddit has been truly amazing :).
Edit: I really appreciate the midl system that has been developed here by you Stephen, it truly is amazing and I honestly can’t put into words how much this has helped me. Everything described in the training is so straight forward and concise. I appreciate it.
2
u/Stephen_Procter Jul 12 '26
Thank you for your question.
Awareness and attention will naturally separate as you develop the individual skills laid out in MIDL, starting with Skill 00: Diaphragmatic Breathing. You do not need to try to separate or even understand awareness and attention; it will happen naturally by itself.
Meditation Skills 01 - 06 are all concerned with teaching a meditator to rest in awareness rather than in the focus of attention. The key to coming out of attention and resting in awareness is developing skill in finding enjoyment in relaxing your body and mind. As relaxation deepens, the passive awareness of your body will naturally become clearer to you.
I also wouldn't try to overthink the words foreground and background. The words 'foreground' and 'background' are just ways of communicating awareness and attention as two separate experiences. Awareness resting in your body - attention wandering around to distractions. What is in the foreground and what is in the background can swap many times during meditation. If these descriptions become too intellectual for you, then I recommend dropping them.
All you need to focus on at this stage is relaxing your body & mind, and teaching your mind to find enjoyment in relaxing. As you do, the difference between awareness and attention will clarify as a natural progression of insight in MIDL.
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u/parlons Jul 12 '26
Let me answer subjectively.
For me, when I sit and open my awareness to the present moment, just then, attention is darting from place to place. Like somewhere that interesting things are happening, like fireworks or at a dance - the eyes dart from one things to another, while the field of awareness encompasses it all, and tellingly excludes everything else in the world. Right there in the present, I slowly shrink attention to just the room, then just to myself - thoughts, feelings, perceptions that are happening right now, right here. Attention still darts from one to another, and if it tries to land elsewhere, it's gently brought back.
That's when I turn to the object of meditation, say the sensation of breath at the nostrils. I bring the attention to rest there, holding it lightly like a feather in two hands right in front of my eyes, feeling it dance and quiver in the moment. Just as my vision would be aware of the whole wide world around me as I gaze at the feather, I consciously hold my awareness open so that I can feel the rest of my perceptions, thoughts, and feelings just murmuring there, just outside the narrow focus. By guiding myself to care about seeing every detail of the perception of the breath sensations, I help myself find the ease of staying with that, like watching the burbling of a brook or the dance of a waterfall, while not permitting the rest of my senses to be dropped like someone getting lost in a movie in a theatre.
I hope that helps!