He was already 20 years old when he first encountered the term "dharma" (Buddhist doctrine), and the encounter set him on a long and circuitous path in search of Buddhist enlightenment. In 1930 he became a monk at Fuquan Temple on Zhejiang Province's Mt. Putuo, one of China's four most sacred Buddhist mountains.
直到二十歲時，在《莊子》一書的注疏中首次接觸到「佛法」二字，忽然心念一動，開始了迂迴曲折的求法之路。