Getting Rid of the Attachment of Fear

Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!

My name is Nico and I am from Belgium. I started practicing Falun Dafa in 2007.

The first time I read Zhuan Falun, I vividly remember reading Lecture Three where Master explained how practitioners in dangerous situations are protected by Master’s Fashen. Master said: “Once you want to truly cultivate, your life will be in danger right away, and this issue will concern you immediately. Many qigong masters dare not teach students toward high levels. Why? They just cannot take care of this matter, and they cannot protect you.” (Lecture Three,  Zhuan Falun)

I remember how shocked I was when I first read this. The very next paragraph immediately comforted me again when Master said:

“But we have told you here that I can do it, because I have numerous fashen who possess my mighty divine powers. They can demonstrate great supernatural powers—very mighty powers of the Fa.”

At the time, I understood fear simply as being afraid of a physical threat and it didn’t really have any other layers of meaning.

A few years ago, I registered for an annual outdoor event that we participated in every summer as a Hongfa activity. Each year, I was responsible for submitting the registration. About a week after the event, I received a letter. I assumed it had come from the organisers because it asked me to update my contact information and return the completed form by post. It even included a prepaid envelope. Since some of my contact details had indeed changed, I filled out the form and mailed it back.

Not long afterward, I realized it actually was fraud. I received another letter informing me that I had to pay a substantial amount of money because, by returning the form, I had supposedly signed a contract for an advertisement about Falun Dafa on a certain website. The terms had been hidden in the fine print, and the amount they demanded was several thousand euros. I was shocked.

I visited the website and, sure enough, there indeed was a page about Falun Dafa. However, the advertisement was of very poor quality and it was clear these people were trying to extort money from people. I did some research and discovered that this organization was known for committing fraud on a very large scale in a highly organized manner. I remembered that the prepaid envelope from the first letter was addressed to somewhere in France. It seemed rather unusual, but I didn’t think too much of it.

However, the second letter listed an address in Mexico! It was all very mysterious. There was no postage stamp on the envelope, only a postal mark, making it impossible to trace where it had actually been sent from. A few weeks later, I received the first payment reminder, together with an additional charge.

I asked a fellow practitioner with a legal background how best to handle the situation. He advised me to send a registered letter as soon as possible, canceling the contract. He told me that under Belgian law, a contract can be canceled if this is done within a certain number of days. Unfortunately, that deadline had already passed. I decided to send the letter anyway and so I sent a registered letter all the way to Mexico. About two weeks later, I received another letter stating that cancellation was not possible and that, if I failed to pay, the amount owed would continue to increase, just as specified in the contract. They even enclosed a copy of the document that I had signed. It felt like there was no solution.

I also realized just how terrified it made me feel, being completely powerless; not knowing what would happen and how, or even if, it would end. That feeling haunted me. I simply couldn’t free myself from it.

Every few weeks, another letter would arrive. I wondered, what would be their next step? It felt as though a sword was hanging over my head, and I couldn’t escape it. Even as we went on summer vacation with my parents-in-law, throughout the entire trip I couldn’t let it go. How was I ever going to get rid of this attachment of fear?

I asked Master for help. Through the Fa, Master gave me very clear hints, encouraging me to simply continue doing what I was supposed to do and not allow myself to be interfered with. Yet putting that into practice was extremely difficult. I had discovered a deep weakness within myself, and I knew I had to eliminate it through cultivation.

The following year, I even skipped the event and didn’t register for it any more, even though I knew very well that the organizer had nothing to do with the scam. But I soon realized that this was not a righteous state of mind. By avoiding the event, I was actually giving in to the interference instead of confronting my attachment. So, I corrected my mindset, registered for the event again and consciously treated it as an opportunity to cultivate myself.

Around that time, my wife showed me an advertisement for a house that was for sale. We eventually bought it. Part of me thought that this problem would probably disappear as well once we had moved to our new home. But was I really handling the situation as a practitioner that way, or was I simply using the move as an opportunity to run away from it?

As it turned out, after we had moved, the letters indeed stopped arriving. But instead, I began receiving emails from a judicial bailiff in Greece, threatening legal action to force me to pay the money. I remember thinking, “Wow, these people really seem to be all over the place.” I realized that moving to another house was not a solution. The only way to truly resolve the situation was to raise my xinxing.

I began thinking about the karma these people were creating for themselves. They were actually using the name of Falun Dafa to extort money from practitioners. Then another thought came to me: how many ordinary people must have found themselves trapped in the very same situation? But they don’t have what I have. They don’t have the Fa. Master said in “Your Mind Must Be Righteous” in Zhuan Falun: “A practitioner will come across tribulations in cultivation. When a tribulation comes, it may manifest as an interpersonal conflict. There will be mind games and the like involved, which directly affect your xinxing.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)

Master also said: “Only those people whose xinxing has improved through cultivation will realize, by looking back, that human moral values have decayed to this terrible extent.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)

Thinking about it this way, I no longer felt resentment or fear. Instead, I only felt sorry for everyone involved—both the victims and the perpetrators. With that change in my mindset, everything changed. The emails stopped, and everything returned to normal. Before long, I no longer thought about the matter. Since then, I haven’t received another email or letter from these people.

Another episode involving the attachment of fear began when my wife suddenly developed a cough. At first, it didn’t seem to mean much. But it kept dragging on for days and when days turned into weeks, her condition became worse and worse. Other practitioners came to our house to share with her and send forth righteous thoughts together. The situation then improved, and my wife was relieved that she was finally getting better. I was happy too with the improvement and mainly hoped it would stay that way. But then suddenly the situation turned around again and it became even worse than before. This time it got so bad that from time to time she even had trouble breathing and could only sleep while sitting upright. One night she was coughing so badly that she could hardly breathe anymore. She looked at me while gasping for air, and I started to panic. It became too intense for me, and I could no longer handle it as a practitioner. My wife was actually calmer than I was. She slowly recovered and eventually managed to fall asleep. Once again, I was struck by fear—fear of losing my wife, fear of our daughter growing up without a mother, etc., etc. I didn’t realize that all those dramatic thoughts were probably becoming a bigger problem than the symptoms themselves. It became a cultivation process for me as well, as I had to learn through the Fa how to handle this kind of situation.

One evening, while I was at work, my wife called me to ask when I would be back home. I told her I had to visit one more customer, and then I would come home. She said her condition was very bad and hoped I could be there soon. My first thought was to turn the car around and drive home as quickly as possible to be with her. But then I gave it some thought. Wasn’t this part of the problem? By rushing home, wasn’t I accepting the interference? Wasn’t that giving in to the fear? We follow only Master’s arrangement, so in that case, what’s there to fear? Besides, if I skipped the rest of my work, those tasks would simply fall on my colleagues the next day. Was that the right thing to do? So I tried to send forth righteous thoughts and focused on the understanding that we follow only Master’s arrangement. In my mind I said, “If this problem is Master’s arrangement, then it is fine. But if it is anything else, you must step aside immediately.” I kept sending righteous thoughts and that thought became stronger and stronger. Gradually, it became stronger than any feeling of doubt or fear. My mind became completely calm, and I realized that this was the righteous state of mind in which all the interference would lose its grip. So I turned my car around, to finish my last task of the day. After that, I drove home.

When I arrived home, my wife was very upset. She asked with tears in her eyes, “Why did it take so long? Don’t you realize I needed you here this evening?” She had suffered a great deal while I was away, and I imagine time must have passed very slowly for her that evening. I wanted to tell her about how I had been thinking about the situation and what I enlightened to, but I didn’t say a word. I was still feeling very calm inside, and her words didn’t trigger any urge to defend myself. It was as if I was in the room with her, yet at the same time I felt like a third party, simply observing what was happening without being emotionally affected. Instead, I felt only a warm sense of compassion for her. She had been through a great deal. I only told her that everything would be fine, and afterward we went to sleep. The next morning, my wife was very surprised. She told me she felt much better. A few days later she recovered completely.

Perhaps my wife had already passed this test long before I did, and the situation continued because I had not yet passed it myself and was still holding on to human emotions. Only after I began to face the situation calmly with strong righteous thoughts could things begin to change for the better. And that is exactly what happened. Thank you, Master, for teaching me this valuable lesson.

The attachment of fear has been a recurring cultivation issue, and it still surfaces from time to time in one of its many forms. At the end of last year, I was contacted by a fellow practitioner who had discovered an opportunity to organize an art exhibition in the city of Liège, Belgium. As the local coordinator, I immediately found the idea very appealing. With the economy struggling, more and more shops have become vacant. It turned out that there was a large empty retail space right in the city centre that we could use for the exhibition.

It was the holiday season, and the city’s Christmas market was about to open. Every year, thousands of visitors come to the market, and this empty shop was located on one of the side streets leading directly to it. The rental price was remarkably low. It almost seemed too good to be true.

We arranged a meeting with the responsible person and we clarified the truth to him. He became very enthusiastic about the project, and so we decided to work together. But since we wanted to take full advantage of the Christmas market period, we had to move quickly.

The manager told me that the contract would be signed the following week as he was still searching for additional partners. But to avoid losing valuable time and with permission of the manager, we had already begun decorating the exhibition hall and we arranged the transportation of the paintings to the venue. It was a very big open space of more than 800 square metres, so we had a lot of work to do to make it look nice. However, as the following week went by, the signing of the contract was postponed day after day. It started to make me suspicious. What was going on?

We faced a dilemma. If we stopped the preparation work, we would probably miss the opening of the Christmas market. But without a signed contract in our hands, it didn’t feel right to continue. The manager came by every day, and each time there seemed to be a different reason why the signing had been delayed yet again. I became increasingly worried.

To partition off part of the open space, we had to drill a few holes in the walls. The walls were already in a very poor condition and full of existing holes, so I asked the manager whether we could drill two additional holes to attach the cables. He assured us that it would not be a problem.

After several days had passed and we still had no contract in our hands, the local manager informed me that an important delegation from Paris would be visiting the shopping street. He seemed nervous about it and he explained that one of them was the big boss of the company. These people were the actual owners of the entire shopping street, including the vacant shop we were using.

The next day, we saw the delegation walk through the street together with the local manager, visiting one shop after another. However, when he entered our shop, he walked straight past us without saying a single word. He looked quite displeased. We had prepared a small table with lotus flowers and flyers hoping to clarify the truth to him as well, but he simply walked all the way to the back of the hall. As he passed the section where we had attached the cables to the wall, he suddenly stopped. Without saying anything, he took out his phone and took a picture of it. I immediately thought, “Oh boy... what’s this?” He continued walking to the back of the hall, turned around, and then walked straight out again—still without saying a single word.

Later that day, the local manager explained that the visit had actually been unexpected. The delegation would hold a meeting that afternoon to discuss all future plans for the shopping street, including our art exhibition. Apparently, that had been one of the reasons for all the delays in signing the contract together with the fact that he didn’t find any additional partners. It was all just a big interference for us to prevent a smooth arrangement for the exhibition. That evening, the situation became even worse. The local manager suddenly sent me a message saying that the head of the company was very unhappy about what he described as the “damage” we had caused to the walls. I replied that the damage had already been there long before we arrived. He said he knew that, but that he had no solution. It turned out that the head of the company had raised the requirements for renting the venue. The rental fee was still OK, but he had instructed the manager to ask us for a €4,000 security deposit. It sounded completely absurd.

At that point, I no longer knew what to think. My mind was being pulled in opposite directions. Part of me worried that we might lose this precious opportunity to save people. Another part of me was filled with doubt. I even began to regret that we had started the project in the first place and wanted to pull the plug on the whole thing. That evening we had a group Fa study and I shared with the whole group about the situation and the interference. I felt a lot of pressure on my shoulders and I already had an apology ready for the group for having acted too impulsively when I accepted the opportunity in the first place. Perhaps the whole situation was my fault. But to my surprise, the reaction of the group made the whole situation change instantly.

Practitioners shared that of course there would be interference. Perhaps the offer was too good to be true. How could it be so easy, right? We have to continue no matter what. The reactions from the group instantly cleared up my whole head. It gave me a very warm feeling of support. What had previously felt like a project carried by only a handful of practitioners suddenly became a group project. We were doing it all together. Instantly, I felt the weight lift from my shoulders.

One practitioner shared that, no matter what happened, they would support whatever was needed to make the exhibition succeed. Hearing that deeply moved me. I felt supported by the entire group, and my righteous thoughts became stronger. Nothing could hold us back. Although I still didn’t know exactly what needed to be done, by the end of the sharing I felt as solid as a rock. My feelings of doubt and fear had disappeared, and I felt deeply grateful to everyone for their encouragement and support.

Then a miracle happened.

Right after our group sharing, I received a message from the manager. He told me that the owners had held a second meeting later that evening over dinner, and as a result they had decided to reduce the security deposit from €4,000 to €2,000. But that wasn’t all. One of the manager’s colleagues, who was also interested in renting the space in the future, offered to pay half of that amount, leaving only €1,000. The manager then told me that he himself was willing to cover half of the remaining balance. Just like that, the required security deposit had been reduced to only €500—an amount that seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

I thanked him for his efforts, but I also stressed that everything now needed to be finalised as quickly as possible. I told him that the contract had to be signed within the next few days; otherwise, we would have no choice but to withdraw from the project. A few days later, the contract was signed, and we were ready to open the doors.

Practitioners came from different places to help prepare the exhibition. Together, we decorated the hall, arranged the tables, installed the lighting, and hung the paintings. Little by little, we transformed this cold, empty retail shop into a warm art gallery.

Right before the opening, I saw the manager bring one of his close relatives into the gallery to show her the paintings. As I listened from a distance, I heard him explaining not only the artwork but also what Falun Dafa is and the persecution in China. He was telling the entire story, and honestly, I couldn’t have explained it any better myself. I felt genuinely happy for him.

The exhibition turned out to be a great success. By the end, around 1,000 visitors signed the petition that was on the tables calling for an end to forced organ harvesting. When the exhibition came to a close, I showed the manager the many heartfelt messages that visitors had written in our guestbook. I told him that it was thanks to his support and cooperation that we had been able to reach so many people. As I said those words, I saw his eyes light up.

Please point out if you notice anything inappropriate in my sharing.

Thank you, Master, for giving me the honour to serve as a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple.

Thanks, fellow practitioners, for all your sharings and support.

(Speaker at the European Fa-Conference 2026 in Prague)