From the moment I started the retreat my mind was very calm and settled, never restless. I felt very happy, as though having come home. I ate one meal a day of leaves from wild potatoes, which I planted myself. I lived in a hut with a yard. There were walls behind, but the front looked out on a cliff. Even though I always remained in the courtyard, I never had a feeling of being closed in.

Eventually I began to prostrate less, spending more time meditating and reading sutras. I also wrote a lot. Six years passed very quickly; I had little sense of time. I hadn't accomplished what I had hoped to, but others persistently urged me to return, so I left the mountains. Returning to Taipei, I still felt inadequate. I thought that to teach Buddha Dharma in this age, I needed a modern education and a degree. So I made plans to study in Japan. The preparation took close to one year. Meanwhile I continued to lecture and write.

At the age of thirty-eight I went to Japan and started work towards a doctorate in Buddhist Literature. This I did in a relatively short time of six years. I attribute this not to any native intelligence, but to the discipline of practice, and to the compassion of Kuan Yin Bodhisattva. During this time I had financial problems, and many times was ready to return to Taiwan. My advisor, who was also a practitioner, said, "In clothing and food there is no mind for the Path, but with a mind for the Path there will always be food and clothing." After hearing this I made daily prostrations to Kuan Yin. Oddly enough, after a short while, I started to receive annual donations from someone in Switzerland, sufficient to cover my tuition and costs to publish my dissertation. To this day I don't know who the donor was.