The subsequent postgraduate study of psychology, a “soft” science, led him to encounter Buddhist meditation for the first time in 1992. He then abandoned psychology and worked as a journalist, a translator and a publishing-house editor for six years, while pursuing the Buddha’s path of the Dhamma as a lay practitioner. In 1995 though, he went to Burma for the first time and for 10 months practised vipassana meditation in Mahasi Meditation Centre in Yangon, while being temporarily ordained as a monk.

His subsequent ordination as a bhikkhu took place in 2000 in Pa Auk forest monastery in Lower Burma where he underwent intense training in samatha meditation for 2 years. He then moved to Sri Lanka where he spent—on and off—12 years and was mostly associated with the forest tradition of Galduwa. A few of those years were also spent in solitude, in simple solitary huts in the area called Laggala.

Besides association with both Burmese and Sri Lankan traditions, he also spent considerable time in Western monasteries of Luang Por Chah lineage, where he benefited tremendously from their teachings.