When Shramanerika Chin Yun Shi first took refuge, someone asked her if she felt anything special. She said no, she didn't feel like a "born again" Buddhist; the conditions had naturally led up to her taking refuge. Growing up in the Buddhist country Myanmar, she often accompanied her mother to temples as a child.

When she was thirteen, her family moved to the United States. She graduated with an Electrical Engineering degree from Cal Poly at Pomona and moved to Seattle to work as a test engineer for Boeing, staying there for fourteen years.

After discussing her own religion with a Jehovah's Witness proselytizer one day, she decided to learn more about Buddhism. When she heard about the Ten Thousand Buddhas Repentance Ceremony at Gold Summit Monastery, she began to attend on weekends. During that time, she bowed to more Buddhas than she had ever bowed to in her whole life! After hearing the Managing Bhikshu, Heng Tso Shi, lecture on the retribution for killing, Chin Yun Shi became a vegetarian. She regularly participated in Dharma assemblies at the Monastery, and also meditated and listened to Dharma at a Theravada temple. As she read more about Buddhism, she found the Sutras more reliable than any other books on Buddhism. After reading the journals of the Three Steps One Bow monks, she realized the urgency of cultivation and took refuge at Gold Buddha Monastery in 1988, receiving the Dharma name Guo Yun.

In 1994 at the Venerable Master's birthday celebration at Long Beach Monastery, someone asked her if she wanted to become a nun. That question planted a Bodhi seed, and she resolved to leave home. She returned to Seattle, quit her job, and moved into Bodhidharma Center to lead a monastic life. On the Guanyin Bodhisattva's Leaving Home Day in 1999, she became a novice at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, receiving the name Chin Yun. Currently she is training as a novice. She aspires to adopt Guanyin Bodhisattva's vows to save living beings, and to emulate Guanyin Bodhisattva life after life.