Owning the Struggle: A Reflection on Passage Meditation

Reading Passage Meditation by Eknath Easwaran has been both inspiring and humbling. His eight-point program offers a simple, elegant framework for deep spiritual practice—but living it out is another matter entirely.

Here are the eight points he lays out: 1. Meditation on an inspirational passage 2. Repetition of a mantram 3. Slowing down 4. One-pointed attention 5. Training the senses 6. Putting others first 7. Spiritual fellowship 8. Spiritual reading Other than putting others first, meditation is the easiest of the eight points for me. Sitting down, focusing on a memorized spiritual passage, and allowing it to settle into my consciousness brings a certain peace I can’t always find elsewhere. I have several passages that I use, including the Prayer of St. Francis as it appears in the Alcoholics Anonymous  “Big Book.”

The hardest part, surprisingly, is using the mantram. I want it to be a steady presence in my daily life—something I can reach for in moments of stress or quiet—but more often than not, my mind is too scattered to remember it. It’s not that I don’t believe in its power. It’s that I haven’t yet built the reflex to turn to it, especially when I need it most.

As for the other points—slowing down, training the senses, one-pointed attention, spiritual reading—I’ve made attempts at each in different seasons of life. Sometimes I get glimpses of what Easwaran is pointing toward: a calmer mind, a more present heart. But those glimpses come in fits and starts. I haven’t been consistent. Not yet.

It would be easy to see this inconsistency as a failure. But I’m learning to reframe that. This isn’t failure—it’s process. It’s what the path looks like sometimes. So I’m choosing to own the struggle, not hide from it. I haven’t reached full alignment with the practice. But I haven’t given up.

One passage from the book that stays with me is this:

“You may wonder why I recommend an inspirational passage for meditation. First, it is training in concentration. Most of our mental powers are so widely dispersed that they are relatively ineffective. When I was a boy, I used to hold a lens over paper until the sun’s rays gathered to an intense focus and set the paper aflame. In meditation, we gradually focus the mind so that when we meet a difficulty, we can cut right through the nonessentials.” That image of focus—of drawing scattered thoughts into a point of flame—speaks to exactly what I hope to cultivate. I may not be there yet, but I’ve seen flickers of that fire. And I trust it’s worth tending.

This is me, vowing to the universe and to myself: I will return to the practice. I will keep showing up. I will keep trying. Because deep down, I know the silence is waiting—and it’s worth coming back to, again and again.