A couple of personal notes begin this podcast. Scroll to about 3 minutes to bypass those.

We revisit foreground/background or figure/ground in this session. Why? Because:

• it is an excellent gateway into “no mind;”
• foreground is the common mode of focus through one’s day. The item of our attention, be that a word, a thing, a person, a thought, projection, assumption, etc., is foreground. It is the “figure” in the foreground. All the while, the “it” is within a context, a larger mandala of supporting or neutral features and factors. These, the background mandala, and the overarching space of awareness are usually not equal in our awareness.
• if one calls forward a breath in any given moment, thus the gap/pause/interlude, one experiences momentary no mind: a neutrality, spacious and clear.
• Recollecting to do this pause, experience its momentary and flawless gap, one begins to notice that the single figure (thought, emotions, item, etc.) upon which one’s attention was fixed or fixated is actually in a unified condition with impartial, wide awareness.