The two key components of consciousness.

Attention and awareness.

The difference between attention and awareness.

Think of attention is your consciousness' spotlight. You can control it as you wish (generally speaking), you can consciously move it around however you want to. And if you hold it on one spot for too long, it can burn. It puts things "on the spot." Things in your direct attention get clarified and get sharpened. On the other side of the coin, things in attention can get analyzed and picked apart with your focus. Attention is more easily manipulated by our own intentions than awareness is.

Awareness is the fill light in the stage of your life. It's a softer, wider, more peripheral view of everything that's happening around you. Like a low-energy antenna steadily receiving transmissions. Awareness gives you the larger context, gives you insight into how things fit together. Your awareness will clue you in while you're driving that there's a car nearby behaving erratically - it will notice it first and work in tandem with your attention to project a few moves ahead into the future and. Less easily controlled by our own intentions, more prone to behaving independently of our own wishes - necessitates training

What "mindfulness" really is.

As all things do when they move from a pure and isolated concept to a heavily trafficked mainstream conceptual commodity, "mindfulness" has come to be misunderstood by most Americans today. That applies both to those lauding it and those denouncing it. The word "mindfulness" is a rough translation from "sati," a Sanskrit word that more closely translates to "the optimal functional cooperation of attention and awareness." The aim is to increase both the capacity of your awareness (i.e., perceiving more at one time), as well as the sharpness of your attention (i.e., your useful comprehension of more of the things in your awareness).

What meditation really is. Like drills for your focus. A way to develop sustained attention. A way to augment your attention while improving your awareness - getting the best of both worlds. Where the untrained mind focuses on one at the expense of the other, the trained meditator develops a deeper level of attention, and sustains it for longer, across a broader net of awareness. Like drills or exercises, meditation is practice honing your focus in a calm, relaxed environment so as to enable you to focus more deeply and clearly when there are lots of spontaneous stimuli swirling around you. It allows your intention to more closely determine both your attention and awareness.

Will you be gorilla-ready when the time comes?

There's a sampling of The Mind Illuminated. There's plenty more to share, but also plenty more to do. Until next time, I wish you calm, peaceful attention and awareness.