# TMI Peripheral Awareness
TMI Peripheral Awareness is the broad contextual knowing that stays open around attention and helps the meditator notice the whole field of experience.
## Meaning
In TMI, attention selects and analyzes a part of experience, while peripheral awareness holds the broader context.
Peripheral awareness can include external sensations, body context, emotional tone, thoughts, and the state of the mind.
It is not a distraction from meditation. It is part of what keeps practice awake, responsive, and balanced.
When peripheral awareness collapses, attention can become over-focused, dull, or captured without warning.
## Source Of Meaning
This note is grounded in The Mind Illuminated conscious-experience model and attention-awareness comparison, especially PDF pp. 56-83 and 239-263.
## Relationship Over Time
This meaning should be compared with Joe's broader meanings for awareness, attention, and presence.
## Links
- [[The Mind Illuminated Meaning Guide]]
- [[The Mind Illuminated Meaning Map]]
- [[TMI Stable Attention]]
- [[TMI Mindfulness]]
- [[TMI Introspective Awareness]]
- [[TMI Dullness]]
- [[Mental Well-being]]
- [[Spiritual Well-being]]
- [[Joe]]
## Tensions
Peripheral awareness can be misunderstood as letting the mind wander.
In TMI, it supports stable attention by keeping the larger field known.
## Question
What needs to remain gently known around the object of attention?