Courtin was raised Catholic, and in her youth she was interested in becoming a Carmelite nun. In her young adulthood, she initially trained as a classical singer while living in London during the late 1960s. She became a feminist activist and worked on behalf of prisoners' rights in the early 1970s. In 1972 she moved back to Melbourne. Courtin began studying martial arts in 1974, living in New York and, again, back in Melbourne. In 1976, she took a Buddhist course taught by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa in Queensland.