Heng Ding Shi grew up in a large family of multiple religious beliefs in Malaysia. Her parents were Taoists who also worshipped Guanyin. Among her brothers and sisters, there are Taoists, Protestants, and Catholics. She herself was Catholic and attended a Catholic-sponsored English school. As a result she had no knowledge of Chinese or Buddhism. She learned to read Chinese books through diligently studying Chinese on her own after school.

After working as a nurse for fifteen years, she was assigned to teach a course on "Care of Heart Disease Patients" at the Central National Hospital of Malaysia. That year the Venerable Master visited Malaysia. Wishing to hear the Master lecture, Heng Ding Shi traveled from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca, and then to Seremban, but missed the Master every time. Finally on the last day she made it to the lecture hall in Kuala Lumpur, but the lecture was cancelled to the fatigue of the delegation members. Just as she was feeling sad and disappointed, she heard an announcement broadcast from a passing car: "Tonight the Venerable Master will still lecture because someone has complained." And so her wish was fulfilled.

Heng Ding Shi came to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas for the first time in 1980. She received the Three Refuges and the Five Precepts, and acquired various volumes of the Venerable Master's instructional talks to take home to study. Upon reading them, she discovered the treasures of the Buddhadharma and resolved to study further. In 1984 she returned to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas and while accompanying the Venerable Master's delegation on a visit to Vancouver, Canada, she had a chance to seek advice from the Master and gained deep benefit. The Master once asked her whether she would like to stay at the City. She replied, "After I retire, I will come to live here permanently."

She returned to the City various times to attend Dharma sessions. When she came to the City in 1994 to celebrate the Master's birthday, she decided to stay. She had retired five years earlier. She entered the monastic life on Guanyin Bodhisattva's Leaving Home Day in October of that year, as part of the last group of disciples whose heads were personally shaved by the Master. After leaving home, she has felt very happy studying the Buddhadharma and the precepts, and only regrets that she joined the Sangha so late. She is now in the Buddhist Studies and Practice Program of Dharma Realm Buddhist University. She also serves as a translator during classes for the new novice nuns.