Critical Insight: Differences Between Awareness and Attention

Keys to The Answer are hiding in plain sight!

I have written an essay discussing what “awareness” is here. In summary, I use the terms “awareness” and “experience” interchangeably; and in my opinion either word is preferable to the term “consciousness” for matters concerning the (spiritual) seeking journey. This essay is intended to put fine points on the conceptual meaning and phenomenological/experiential properties of “awareness” and to provide an examination into the properties of “attention.”

Part 1: The Basics

Alan Watts often used a phrase that you still hear a lot today: “the spotlight of attention.” He would usually contrast that with the phrase “the floodlight of awareness.” This analogy of light sources may be helpful in the beginning, but it has several shortcomings. Consequently, it should be moved past as quickly as possible in order to avoid conceptual traps¹.

Here’s what the “spotlight” analogy gets right: attention is narrow in scope, it’s moveable, and it highlights something of interest that is already intrinsically present. That last point is often forgotten, but it’s very important. Once one absorbs these good points of the analogy, it’s important to note the shortcomings of the analogy and to try to transcend the conceptual framing by investigating one’s direct experience.

The first shortcoming to note is a false duality: a spotlight shines on something other than itself. This is not how attention works. Attention isn’t one “thing” and what it attends to another “thing.” Attention is simply the fact of attending to an aspect/facet (or multiple aspects/facets) of our pre-existing experience/awareness. Experience/awareness is “nondual” already - there is no separation between awareness and “what” we’re aware of. And awareness is the source of attention (more on this in a bit).

This brings us to the second analogy failure: a spotlight emits light and shines that light on something. But in reality attention receives the “light” of an already-luminous (i.e. more fundamental) aspect of pre-existing awareness/experience. Attention is a “sharpening” or a “zooming in” on something already alive and present in experience.

Here is a different analogy that corrects these issues with the spotlight/floodlight model: awareness/experience is like the entirety of the visual field. Take a few moments to appreciate the richness of the field of vision. Light, color, texture, and shape spontaneously form and dance across this field. It has a limit, but you can’t seem to find the edge. Effortlessly it fills itself with whatever appears there. These are the ways in which the visual field is similar to experience/awareness (which I will often describe as a “field” as well).

Now consider the sharp, central (or foveal) vision within the context of the entire visual field. The relationship between attention and awareness is almost exactly the same as the relationship between central vision and the entirety of the visual field. Here are some key points that can be investigated in the laboratory of your direct experience:

• Central vision is a subset (derivative) of the visual field (fundamental).

• There is nothing the central vision can attend to that isn’t already pre-existing in the more fundamental visual field.

• Central vision can be freely moved anywhere within the visual field.

• The central vision provides very useful, high-resolution information about a very narrow scope of the visual field.

• The peripheral vision contains everything that is not in the central vision; and while the peripheral vision cannot achieve the high-resolution of the central vision, it’s scope is vast by comparison and it functions perfectly well in its own right. What it lacks in detail it makes up for in enormous scope; a landscape within which central vision is free to be employed wherever makes the most sense.

• The central vision doesn’t provide light or “objects” that weren’t already present in the visual field, it simply provides finer-grained detail about what already exists.

• If you don’t exercise the central vision for any purpose, the richness and depth of the visual field isn’t diminished.

You can direct attention anywhere you want to in the field of awareness, just like you can direct the central vision anywhere you want to in the visual field. But moving it about the field doesn’t change the contents of the field². Just the degree of detailed information available from any given part of the field.

There are some key differences between the vision analogy and attention/awareness themselves. So we can’t stop at the vision analogy, we must press on.

The first major difference. You cannot change the scope of the central vision; it subtends the same angular space in your visual field at all times. So for more distant objects is can cover a larger area. But the area of the central vision itself can’t really be changed. But imagine if you could alter the scope of the central vision — that you could tighten it and get even greater resolution/detail out of that even-smaller field. Or that you could expand it’s aperture and take in a larger field of information than the default size. If you did this you would lose a little high-resolution detail, but maybe that would be very advantageous? You would get a moderately-large field with moderately-high detail. That is exactly how attention works.

You can tighten it’s scope and increase its “focus” or “magnifying power.” Or you can slacken it’s “focus” or “magnification” and increase it’s scope. But it’s a zero-sum balance between scope and detail. The more you increase the scope, the less fine-grained detail attention can provide.

This is how you can figure out attention is derivative of awareness. Basic mindfulness meditation can lay the groundwork for this investigation. Once you get used to “directing” attention with mindfulness (see Part 3 below), start playing with the “object” of meditation. If you focus on the breath, try to stay with it, but then add items to the “scope” of attention. In addition to focusing on the breath, also focus on whatever is in your central visual field. If you can manage that, then also concentrate on any sounds that are occurring. If you can do that, add something else like a sensation in part of the body. The more you add to the “scope” of attention, the “softer” it’s focus becomes, the less “high-resolution detail” can be found.

You can then “relax” the field of attention entirely… attention will seem to “dissolve” into the “sea” that is the pre-existing field of awareness/experience. This is often called “choiceless awareness.” What is, is. Attention can come and go within this field. But the field itself never goes anywhere. So attention is a special “case” or “mode” of this pre-existing field of awareness/experience.

One last analogy is required before we get a fairly good feel for the properties of attention: that of breathing. Conventional thinking divides human activity into two categories: voluntary (or volitional) and involuntary. This conventional thinking is totally wrong, but at least it makes for a well-known starting point.

Now consider breathing: is it voluntary or involuntary behavior? It’s neither. Or it’s both. You can modulate your breathing if you want to. Go ahead and try. Now let go of trying to control it at all — and breathing carries on just the same. You can control your breathing up to a point, but as soon as you stop controlling breathing, it just continues on with a life of its own. Attention is exactly like that.

You can control/direct attention all you want (again, see Part 3 below). But irrespective of that, it will also do it’s own thing. Whether you are actively directing it or not, it can always zoom off in its own direction. This is highly adaptive and important behavior. You may not be paying attention to the most advantageous thing when the unexpected happens in a flash. Attention will guide itself when it “thinks” it “needs” to. Either in accordance with, or very often, against your will.

Part 2: The Differences

Alan Watts frequently pointed out how people usually (and erroneously) mistake themselves for what he called “conscious attention.” That is a reasonable diagnosis of our collective malady. Our problem is a deep case of myopia; what Buddhism refers to as avidya (the Sanskrit word is usually translated “ignorance,” but literally means “not seeing” or “not knowing”). We are ignoring the true nature of ourselves/reality because we have erroneous beliefs: we believe incorrectly that our preconceived notions about those things are true. Because we hold to erroneous presumptions — for example assuming we are more or less the same thing as “conscious attention” — we fail to see things as they actually are. Expectations form self-fulfilling prophesies. The seeker does well to dispense with all expectations as quickly and completely as possible.

Getting curious about the differences between awareness and attention can go a long way in clarifying matters for the seeker. Mindfulness meditation can be a powerful means of accomplishing this — if one doesn’t get distracted by the mechanics and irrelevant ballast that often comes from the traditions. Distractions also come in a modern variety: tech-enabled guided meditations via things like smartphone apps.

Here is the first exploration tip: ditch the guided meditations as quickly as possible! Guided meditations can be very helpful for the beginner; that’s how I started. But as soon as you get the gist of the mechanics of the practice, then dispense with the guide as quickly as possible.

Guided meditation is exactly like training wheels on a bicycle. It may be impossible (or needlessly protracted) to try learn to ride a bike without taking advantage of training wheels. But as soon as you get a feel for balance on a bike, the training wheels need to come off as quickly as possible. Continuing to use the training wheels makes it impossible to learn how to ride a bike properly/competently. Guided meditations are every bit as counterproductive to learning to meditate properly/competently as keeping training wheels on the bike too long.

Once you learn basic mindfulness and develop a modicum of proficiency — practicing keeping attention on the object of meditation (e.g. breath, body scan, metta, etc.), noticing when it wanders, gently bringing it back to the object — it’s time to eliminate any guide. Once you can meditate “reasonably well” without guided meditation, then you can take the next step. Start to slacken the “goal” of staying with the object of meditation. Attention is alive and dynamic; capable of attending to any aspect of awareness/experience. If you want to explore your own nature and your own mind, you must allow (or better, direct) your attention to something other than the traditional meditation object. Thoughts and feelings arise during practice. Sometimes they are pointless; then it is good to just let them go and return to the object of meditation. But sometimes they are vitally important — clues to the nature of your life. Then they are very much worth paying attention to and investigating. This is where meditation can become anything from fascinating to harrowing. Not a practice for the faint of heart!

If you start to do this, you’ll enter the deep end of the pool quickly. You may often find yourself “in over your head.” When that happens, abandon exploration and return to the shallow “kiddie pool” of the traditional object of your meditation. This can calm the tumultuous activity of unguided meditation. But keep at it and it will teach you the basic “order” of the universe of The Mind.

There is the totality of the field of awareness/experience. This is almost what you are. It’s huge. Utterly ineffable and infinite in the way fractals are. Take a single aspect of awareness and “go into” it with careful attention — you will find it bottomless, fathomless, unbounded…

So attention itself is created within and by the field of awareness. You can have a field of awareness with attention totally relaxed to the point of being nonexistent (“choiceless awareness”). But it’s impossible for there to be attention at all unless there is already a luminous field of awareness. Further, there’s this inexplicable ability to direct attention; even if it sometimes (oftentimes?) goes where we don’t direct it.

The basic mindfulness practice allows us to explore these different aspects of our mental landscape: awareness, attention, and the direction of attention. The latter is the only one that can be “trained” to gain increased proficiency.

This growth is crucial for the seeker to gain insight. Yet nothing hampers this development and exploration more than being stuck-in-a-rut listening to guided meditations, or chasing pointless “levels” of concentration “achievement” espoused by many traditions. The only thing that should matter is exploring your own mind. No teacher, no scripture, no tradition can give you the mind you already have. It’s already there. So explore it! No one else can do that for you.

Back to the beginning of this section: most people erroneously presume that they are nothing more than (the process and/or contents of) what they pay attention to. This is one of the key stumbling blocks to insight. This can’t be overstated. Recall the analogy of the visual field; how much of the visual field is encompassed by the central vision? I-read-it-on-the-internet-so-it-must-be-true says about one percent. As important as attention (or central vision) is, it is but a tiny fraction of what’s going on in the totality your awareness. Let that sink in…

Here is the big takeaway: awareness is (almost) fundamental, attention is not. Attention arises because of and within the awareness that’s already there. Attention is tiny in scope, awareness is unbounded. Attention must focus, yet can lose focus regardless of our willpower. Awareness is always aware; it can’t be deminished even if you try! Attention is very important, but it’s not what’s most important. Here is what is most important:

Awareness is always already perfectly aware of everything within it.

Always has been, always will be. And it’s effortless! That is much closer to “what you really are” than mere attention (although attention is still obviously very important).

Can you come to appreciate the unspeakable power of awareness itself? It’s true that what it contains that is not attended to by attention is simply coming-and-going, never to be seen again. But that’s the very nature of life and existence itself. We ignore this fundamental and awesome aspect of reality to our peril.

Overlooking the primacy and scope of awareness/experience is the linchpin of our suffering/dissatisfaction/frustration. So why not take the time to investigate it for what it is? Why not gain some clarity on the fundamental, rather than fanning the flames of delusion? As much as practical, revisit this pointer during practice:

Awareness is always already perfectly aware of everything within it.

And that is basically what you are! Consider the scope and power of awareness in great detail:

Regardless of what you’re (not) paying attention to, awareness is always perfectly aware of 100% of your visual field, 100% of your auditory field, 100% of your taste and smell fields, 100% aware of your feelings of touch, 100% aware of your thoughts, 100% aware of your feelings/emotions/moods, 100% aware of your proprioceptive field, 100% aware of your interoceptive field, and so on — always at every moment of your life. And without one erg of energy/effort of your will/volition! That is the true reality of the “omnipotence” that some traditions speak of.

Attention can barely attend to a minuscule fraction of even one of those fields within awareness at any given moment.³ It is so limited and paltry, regardless of its importance. This is why defining oneself with the limits of mere attention is a recipe for dissatisfaction and frustration (a.k.a. “suffering”).

To reiterate, a rigorous mindfulness practice will never improve the capacity/ability of awareness and won’t improve the capacity/ability of attention itself. But meditation can improve our capacity/ability to direct attention, which is one of the most important skills the seeker (or anyone!) can learn. If you can’t skillfully wield attention, you are doomed to live with the capricious, volatile, and spontaneous movements of attention within the field of awareness.

Part 3: “Directing” Attention = “Meta-Attention?”

This aspect of our mind that meditation can actually improve (the ability to control/direct the focus of attention) doesn’t have a name in English. But it is distinct from both awareness and attention and is therefore worthy of careful consideration.

If someone tells you to pay attention to something, and if you’re fairly nominal from a neurological perspective, you’ll be able to direct your attention at that something (at least for a little while) with some attentive “bandwidth” taking in whatever was indicated. This isn’t unusual. But it is an utter mystery how doing so is even possible. This capacity to direct attention obviously exists, but the degree of control over attention is wildly variable in the average populace. Some people naturally have a great deal of control, others naturally have a great lack of control, and everyone else lies somewhere in between. I’ve never come across a name for this capacity that is both accurate and widely-recognizable. Some candidates:

• Meta-awareness

• Meta-cognition

• Executive Function

• Concentration

While all are fairly “okay” labels, they each have their downsides. This capacity we’re talking about is simply another aspect/facet of awareness, not “above” and/or “beyond” awareness, as the first name implies. The second and fourth names seem to emphasize volition/will, but this process (like what your breathing does when you’re not forcing it) carries on of its own accord even when you’re not wielding it with intentionality. The third name does not exhibit that previous issue (with the second and fourth terms), but it’s not a commonplace notion⁴ and certainly doesn’t roll off the tongue…

I’ve never heard anyone call it “meta-attention,” but that seems to me the simplest and most intuitive label. It functions upon attention in almost the same way attention functions upon awareness. If attention is providing the “high-resolution” version of the content of awareness, then meta-attention is the both the “location data” of where attention is focused within the field of awareness/experience, and the capacity to move attention to a new “location” within the field. “Meta-attention” can be volitionally directed; but if it isn’t — like breathing — it simply does it’s own thing.

This capacity is the only thing that’s different between someone who can maintain a hyper-focus for protracted periods of time and someone who could be characterized as having ADHD. This capacity can be developed through intentional repetition of practice. I can’t think of a better method for general improvement of this capacity than mindfulness meditation. Although any activity that requires concentration will improve it, those activities may not improve it in a way that transfers 1:1 to skills salient to living the good life.

Mindfulness meditation can unlock this capacity of “meta-attention” — that is improve the ability to direct attention in a manner you desire. You can even develop greater control over the “executive function” of what you desire to pay attention to. It’s very possible to find social (and mainstream) media generally revolting and naturally paying basically zero attention to them. If one can do that, this will greatly shorten the path to “the good life.”

I can’t describe how any of this this is accomplished. It’s something the practitioner must discover through one’s own practice. The good news is that once you figure out how to start improving this capacity — then the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Happy exploration!

1. You will often hear teachers use the analogy of a mirror to describe awareness as well. This may be very helpful for a beginner, but the analogy is so poor (considerably worse than the spotlight/floodlight), it must be dispensed with as soon as possible. A good teacher should offer disclaimers about the shortcomings of the analogy as it is being used. The sixth patriarch of Zen, Huineng, criticized the analogy of a mirror in the Platform Sutra. Not only is a mirror inherently dualistic, but it is utterly passive — the exact opposite of the “radiant presence” (as Peter Brown would say) of awareness/experience.

2. This is an oversimplification for sake of the current discussion. Hopefully it is well followed. Once it is, a deeper understanding is called for.

Predictive processing/Bayesian brain descriptions of precision-weighting illustrate how “attention” actually can alter experience by mediating between prior predictions of the generative model and sensory information that is at odds with the model — i.e. if generative model predictions do not account for sensory data, the resulting prediction errors are calls for “attention” whereby the precision-weighting can emphasize or downplay either the predictions or the sensory data. Our direct experience is the result of this interplay.

While predictive processing theories are incomplete, they still shed a tremendous amount of light on the way or brains function. My favorite books on this topic so far are Being You by Anil Seth and The Experience Machine by Andy Clark. While I disagree with some points in these books (most sharply with Clark’s adherence to illusionism) they are wonderfully written, invaluable surveys of a very compelling field of research. Unlike most scientific hypotheses, you can test aspects of predictive processing in your direct experience. And the results are often stunning — even mind-boggling! No psychedelics required!

3. To illustrate this contrast, I will apologetically pick on Sam Harris (sorry, Sam). Often in a guided meditation of his he might say something like ‘now become aware of the sensations in the bottoms of your feet’ (not a quote, obviously). This is a huge blind spot in practice, and more gross in instruction.

You are alway 100% aware of the feelings in the bottoms of your feet (and all physical sensations in the body) even when you are not paying attention to them. The guided meditation instruction should be “now direct your attention to the sensations in the bottoms of your feet.” You’re already aware of the sensations — they already exist in your experience — you’re just not paying attention to them. And you’re most likely not paying attention to them because nothing is amiss. They amount to nothing but the most subtle “background noise.” Likely you were probably paying attention to the breath (or whatever is the object of meditation) in one manner or another.

If you watch a TV show you similarly won’t pay attention to the sensations in your feet if nothing is abnormal. But the sensations still exist in your awareness whether you’re paying attention to them or not. The fact that you can sense them acutely if you pay attention to them is the proof. Although the proof is subtle! This must be verified through direct experience/experimentation.

4. In neuroscience (and related fields’) literature “executive function” is a very broad capacity. Yes, it can be said that “executive function” is what guides attention (in a goal-oriented fashion). But it is what guide all goal-oriented, decision-making capacities — a scope far beyond the simple, controlled direction of attention that can be trained in mindfulness meditation. And that simple (although possibly very difficult) control of attention is too critically important to be conflated with the cornucopia of other “executive function” capacities.