I was always hungry. I was careful, though, to never eat a meal for my own sake. I felt there needed to be a specific reason for me to eat a particular meal. So as I would sit down to each meal I would ask myself the reasons for my hunger: “Did I really work hard? Did I work for myself, or for a public purpose?” I would face a bowl of rice and tell it, “I am eating you so that I can do tasks that are more glorious and more for the public good than what I did yesterday.” !en the rice would smile back at me with its approval. In those instances, the time spent eating a meal was mystical and joyful. When I didn’t feel qualified to talk this way, I would skip the meal no matter how hungry I might be. As a result, there were not many days when I would have even two meals.

       I didn’t limit myself to two meals a day because I had a small appetite. In fact, once I began to eat there was no limit to the amount I could consume. I once ate eleven large bowls of udon in one sitting. Another time I ate seven bowls of a dish consisting of chicken and a fried egg over rice. Despite this appetite I kept up my custom of not eating lunch and limiting myself to two meals a day until I was more than thirty years old.