Questions on passage meditation

[bhakta]

For those who are not familiar with passage meditation, it is a method where you memorize a passage with some spiritual meaning and then try to read the passage silently with eyes closed for half an hour. Reading a number of testimonies and positive reviews of the book that highlights this meditation I feel like it should work. So long story short I have been practicing the meditation since the past 4 days but I am encountering some difficulty. Regarding the passage I chose a beautiful Taoist poem by Lao Tzu called finding the unity in life and I have memorized the whole passage. I have no problem repeating the passage in my mind but after 3 4 repetitions it gets really gmonotonous. So what I am doing is counting the repetitions and taking deep breath and exhaling according to the number of repetitions; i.e., after first repetition, I take a full deep breath, after 6 repetitions, 6 deep breaths etc.

Now the problem is after taking the intermediate breaths I feel like I become more conscious of my surrounding and fear that albeit relaxing it might be detrimental later on to my access to higher levels of meditation as the respiration brings back the consciousness to the sorrounding ambience. Do you agree with me on that? If yes do you have any other suggestion to continue the meditation without having to give in to boredom and at the same time reaping full benefits?

Thank you

[iamthat]

I have never tried passage meditation as you describe, so I cannot comment on the possible benefits. But I do know that doing particular repetitious meditation techniques can become monotonous and tedious. Mentally repeating something or counting breaths in pranayama can become very mechanical, and we end up superficially going through the motions, missing the essence of the meditation.

So perhaps regard the passage as a stepping stone to higher levels. If you find yourself entering a higher state then let go of the passage and the breathing. It has served its purpose. You do not have to continually go back to repeating the process.

It is rather like using a stepping stone to cross a stream. When we are on the other side we no longer need the stepping stone. We may think that the stepping stone is important because it allowed us to cross the stream, but it does not make sense to cross the stream and then keep returning to the stepping stone.

Hope this is of some use.

Peace