One of the Buddha’s honorifics was the ‘Great Physician’. To have the patience of a doctor one must be patient three-fold!

Like the vital conditions necessary for a plant to grow into fullness — when there is sense restraint, it unfolds into ethical conduct, then into right immersion, then into a true knowledge and vision, then into a disillusionment and dispassion, and then finally into a knowledge and vision of freedom!’ (AN 6.50)

Like the blossoming of a lotus!

The ascetic Gotama was thin as a skeleton, starving, and surviving off mere grains of rice. He had become so emaciated and weak that when he went down to the river, he wasn’t strong enough to get back out - and almost got washed away. 

Even if villains were to saw off your limbs, never stop embracing with your heart!

“Everyone wants to point a finger! But it’s everyone that shares the blame! If you are looking for it, everyone gives you a reason to put a knife in them! If you are looking for it, everyone shows you where! That’s how things get stopped, ascetic!” shouted Angulimala

This is a list of daily contemplations suggested the by Buddha!

Jaradhammomhi: I am of the nature to grow OLD!

Byadhidhammomhi: I am of the nature to get SICK!

Maranadhammomhi: I am of the nature to DIE!

Sabbehi me piyehi manapehi nanabhavo vinabhavo: Everything pleasing-charming to me becomes different, becomes not so!

Young grief stricken Singala washed himself in the water among the crowd of yogis making their ablution. Quietly he waited for the dawn with the these Kinsmen of the Sun; and did his best to imitate their asanas. Sobriety and emotions made his body shudder.

“Householder’s son, why are you revering the quarters in this way?”

Singala replied, “Sir, on his deathbed my father said to me: ‘My dear, please revere the quarters.’ Honoring, respecting, and venerating my father’s words, I rose early and left Rajagaha; now with my clothes and hair all wet, I raise my joined palms to revere the various quarters—east, south, west, north, below, and above!”

Suppose, bhikkhus, that a man needing heartwood, seeking heartwood, wandering in search of heartwood, would take a sharp axe and enter a forest. There he would see the trunk of a large plantain tree, straight, fresh, without a fruit-bud core. He would cut it down at the root, cut off the crown, and unroll the coil. As he unrolls the coil, he would not find even softwood, let alone heartwood. A man with good sight would inspect it, ponder it, and carefully investigate it, and it would appear to him to be void, hollow, insubstantial. For what substance could there be in the trunk of a plantain tree?