As soon as he took up the practice of Zen meditation, he did so she writes with a tremendous resolve and determination. And again, here are cousens words. When I started meditating, I was firmly convinced that I would be able to complete the practice within the three months of the first retreat period, their retreats, are 90 days. They're not as intense they're not as strict as our seven day sessions. It's still 90 days of extra sitting. He writes, he says, I exerted myself to the point where I no longer cared whether I lived or died. This remember my early years of practice hearing this I no longer cared whether I lived or died, I assumed it was hyperbole. How could you reach a point where you you no longer cared whether you lived or died. But then later, as my practice on Mu, ripened, I understood and felt the same way. But then the three months for drawing to an end, and he says, I had still not realized my goal course that means enlightenment. I wanted to die since I felt it was it was no longer worth living. My life is no longer worth living. Once while doing standing meditation in order to prevent drowsiness, that's another thing that they do in Korean Zen when you become terribly drowsy in the in the zendo, you have the option of standing where you're less likely to be succumb to drowsiness. Once when he was doing the standing, he said I thought of drowning myself or throwing myself off a high cliff. But at that very moment, a huge snow capped mountain appeared before me. And this somehow shook him out of his misery or self pity, and he made him remember that the Buddha himself Shakyamuni had practiced for six full years at the feet of just such mountains. I then realized that it was somewhat presumptuous for me to want to complete my training in three months. So then he renounced his intention to die, and redoubled his efforts.