(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Gong before July 1999, when the persecution began, when I was an undergraduate student. My non-practitioner parents saw that I was steadfast in the practice. They worried about me after the persecution began and encouraged me to get married, to distract me. I was not eager to get married, but I agreed to date a man.

I thought that since I had studied the Fa for a long time, I could control myself. But because of my attachment to lust, thought karma, and human notions, sometimes I was not sure of the right thing to do. Using the excuse of cultivating while conforming to ordinary society, I did something I should not have done, though we did not have a sexual relationship. We then separated because he was strongly opposed to my practicing Falun Dafa. I was later illegally arrested and imprisoned in a forced labor camp. I felt that my being subjected to brutal torture in the camp was related to my attachment to lust.

After being released from the labor camp, I could not find a job right away, so I clarified the facts often on the Internet. I met a non-practitioner who was looking for a girlfriend online. We lived in the same city. His parents were practitioners. He had practiced before and understood the practice, and he had a good income. My heart was moved. However, one month later his application to immigrate was approved, and he went abroad. I moved to another place to work, and we never had a chance to meet.

My attachment to sentimentality should have been resolved then. But I was distracted by the relationship with him and dated him online. I did not take a lesson from my first encounter. I did things that I should not have done online. He later cursed me when I mentioned Dafa to him. I understood that the old forces had arranged for him to distract me.

I was then arrested for the second time. I lost my righteous thoughts and wrote a guarantee statement promising to give up practicing, in order to get released. After my release I had a dream. In the dream, a fellow female practitioner gave me a yo-yo. I held it but accidentally dropped it into a cesspit, and could not reach it. That fellow practitioner was married to another practitioner, and both had been divorced. I enlightened that the fellow practitioner was arrested because of not letting go of the attachment to love. I knew it was not good and that I must let it go.

Though I understood in principle, it was hard to completely let it go because I also had an attachment to enjoying a happy life. I was finally determined to end the relationship with him.

I later began to like a male fellow practitioner. As soon as my heart was moved by him, I was arrested and incarcerated in a labor camp.

I realized that the requirements for a Falun Dafa practitioner are very strict regarding relationships between men and women, and the old forces take the issue very seriously. A practitioner may invite severe persecution if he has any inappropriate thoughts.

Regarding marrying a non-practitioner, my current understanding is that we are gradually eliminating the sentiments of love and lust, as they are fundamental attachments. It is hard for a practitioner to control himself, and doing so would be even harder if he marries a non-practitioner due to the degenerating notions of everyday people. It would be detrimental to one's cultivation.

Some fellow practitioners have indeed married non-practitioners, but the non-practitioner spouses soon started practicing. This has usually happened with new practitioners who have predestined relationships with their spouses. Everyone has a different background. Some practitioners have a lot of karma on this issue and may meet with ill-fated relationships that the old forces arranged in order to destroy them.