22 Loving-Kindness: Visualizing One's own Happiness

The immeasurable of loving-kindness is guided through a 24-minute meditation which focuses on envisioning the causes and conditions for one's own happiness, achieving this happiness, and then sharing this happiness with others. Alan then answers the following questions: 1. How do we decide what length breaks to take between sessions? Also, I am getting sleepy after a few sessions - am I doing it wrong? 2. How do you say awareness in Tibetan? 3. When settling the mind in its natural state, where is awareness when I am thinking? 4. Is it possible to think without awareness? 5. A comment on diet and vegetarianism. 6. I noticed that when practicing the stretching exercise during awareness of awareness, I sensed my whole energetic body was stretching out. What was that? 7. What are your reasons for not using a Buddha image [a visualization practice] as a focus for meditation? 8. Please point out if and how agitation [excitation] and dullness [laxity] differ for the three shamatha practices. 9. In so far as overcoming excitation and laxity indicates achieving different stages of shamatha, must one do so in every type of shamatha to achieve that level?