Thoughts on the Issue of Marriage for Young Practitioners

Many practitioners who started cultivation as children are now old enough to be married. I, too, am a young man and would like to share my humble opinion on the subject of marriage.

From my own understanding of the Fa, it is not a question of to marry or not to marry. It is about one's heart. From the perspective of accommodating everyday people's society, I believe marriage is a matter of personal choice. Many practitioners might think, "Why do I need to be married? I will relinquish the thought of marriage." It turns out nobody asks to marry them, and there is no problem with this. On the other hand, some other practitioners may want to be married.

There is one issue that one needs to consider when one talks about the subject of marriage. Whether a practitioner decides to marry or not, he or she should attain what the Fa requires of him/her at his/her respective level of cultivation practice. We should ask if we have attained the standard of the Fa at our respective levels of cultivation. If a practitioner gets married for the sake of pursuing happiness, sensual desires or romantic love, I would like to advise him/her to give up on the idea of getting married for the time being. Marrying for these reasons will only result in entrapment in these worldly desires. An impure thought will cause a series of problems and interference to a practitioner's cultivation practice. A practitioner might prevail over these problems and interference or he might not. In the worst case scenario, the practitioner might even give up cultivation all together. Without the support of righteous thoughts which arise from on-going Fa study, a practitioner is bound to go astray from his path of cultivation. We have only a limited time to cultivate ourselves well, assist Teacher in the Fa-rectification, do the Three Things well and attain what Teacher expects us to accomplish. If some human thoughts remain with us, it is for the sake of leading a normal life in everyday society, not for the sake of satisfying any lowly desires.

Not long ago a fellow practitioner told me a story about another practitioner who started practicing Falun Gong before the persecution began in 1999. The practitioner was thrown into jail for practicing Falun Gong and then released. When he came to the appropriate age to be married, he actively sought to date flight attendants (typically beautiful young women). After the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party was published, he was opposed to its contents and gave up practicing Falun Gong. Later, with the help of fellow practitioners, he started to practice Falun Gong once again. However, soon he again stopped studying the Fa. Then he had an affair with an ex-girlfriend. Next his family pressured him to get married. After meeting a female practitioner and seeing her only a few times, he decided to marry her right away. Evidently, he was quite attached to sentimentality. I was really worried for them. It appeared that they decided to get married to have a good life, not to help them clarify the truth about Falun Gong or to create a stable environment for their cultivation practice. I believe that a practitioner does not seek what an ordinary person seeks. Sentimentality is inconsistent and unreliable. Their story reminded me of many stories where fellow practitioners have been persecuted because they failed to prevail over sexual desires. On the other hand, there are many practitioners that got married and have been doing the Three Things well.

I have come to realize that it is important to not only choose a spouse wisely, but to balance married life and cultivation if we decide to marry. It is a lot of hard work. After you get married, you also face the issue of starting a family, rearing your children and handling family relationships. These are additional issues that a practitioner must handle seriously and well.