You don’t get off scot-free in this life.

Suppose that you have an “ancient fear” of being alone. Maybe you were a child and you felt deeply alone.

Fast forward 20, 30, 50 years. Why is it so hard to sleep through the night? There may be many reasons, of course, but from this point of view, it’s owing to this longstanding, primal samskara: “I am alone.”

You might have thought that such a fear had subsided. Perhaps it’s been decades since you even considered it. Perhaps, in the past, you’ve reasoned with yourself amply: “I’m not alone. I have a beautiful, supportive family. I have nothing to worry about. This is an ‘irrational fear.’”

And yet, here it is: it’s gripping you as you wake up in a fright. You can’t reason with it, and you can’t deny it. You can’t wish it away. You try to breathe with it, and even this feels nearly impossible. And even if in the light of day, it seems as if it was just a passing blip or glitch, you can’t spirit it away or brush it aside.

Why not?

Because here it is again, two weeks or two months later…

Once you understand these unwieldy and seemingly unyielding repetitions, you really start to get karma.

What is left? Not giving up but the most intuitive approach.

For it’s at this point that you turn inside the body, sit with it, and open deeply to it. I tend to like listening (cf. Gendlin’s “focusing”) first; this is followed by an examination of the sensation; and this is followed, perhaps, by self-inquiry. However this turning inside and being with this arising looks, the approach must be totally open to it, completely accepting of it–while also being utterly unconvinced of the reality (sat in Sanskrit) of it.

You begin by feeling that you can’t get off scot-free. You end by feeling gratitude for the way in which this suffering has pointed to the ultimate truth.