journey to Gu Shan (Drum Mountain) in Fuzhou to leave home. Before leaving, he wrote the "Song of the Skinbag" which he left behind for his two wives. It was at Gu Shan monastery that his head was shaved and he received ordination as a monk. When his father sent agents to find him, Xuyun concealed himself in a grotto behind the monastery, where he lived in solitude for three years. At the age of twenty-five, Xuyun learned that his father had died, and his stepmother and two wives had entered the monastic life. During his years as a hermit, Xuyun made some of his most profound discoveries. He visited the old master Yung Ching, who encouraged him to abandon his extreme asceticism in favor of temperance. He instructed the young monk in the sutras and told him to be mindful of the Hua Tou, "Who is dragging this corpse of mine?" In his thirty-sixth year, with the encouragement of Yung Ching, Xuyun went on a seven-year pilgrimage to Mount Putuo off the coast of Ningbo, a place regarded by Buddhists as the bodhimaṇḍa of Avalokiteśvara. He went on to visit the Temple of King Ashoka and various Chan holy places. Middle Age and Enlightenment At age forty-three, Xuyun had by now left home life for more than twenty years, but he had not yet completed his practice in the Path. He had not repaid his parents' kindness, and so he vowed to again make a pilgrimage to Nan Hai. From Fa Hua Temple all the way to Ch'ing Liang Peak at Mount Wutai of the northwest, the bodhimanda of Manjushri, he made one full prostration every three steps. He prayed for the rebirth of his parents in the Pure Land. Along the way, Xuyun is said to have met a beggar called Wen Chi, who twice saved his life. After talking with the monks at the Five-Peaked Mountain, Xuyun came to believe that the beggar had been an incarnation of Manjushri. Having achieved singleness of mind, Xuyun traveled west and south, making his way through Tibet. He visited many monasteries and holy places, including Sichuan's Mount Emei, the bodhimanda of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, the Potala, the seat of the Dalai Lama, and Tashilhunpo Monastery, the seat of the Panchen Lama. He traveled through India and Ceylon, and then across the sea to Burma. During this time of wandering, he felt