Paying attention and awareness are universal capacities of human beings.

The real meditative practice is to open up to the full range of what happens in life. And parenting is a fantastic arena for doing that kind of spiritual training. It's as much a potential door into enlightenment as anything else.

Just stopping, is a radical act of sanity and love.

No one can listen to your body for you... To grow and heal, you have to take responsibility for listening to it yourself.

Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. Without calmness, the mirror of mindfulness will have an agitated and choppy surface and will not be able to reflect things with any accuracy.

Discipline provides a constancy which is independent of what kind of day you had yesterday and what kind of day you anticipate today.

Generosity is another quality which, like patience, letting go, non-judging, and trust, provides a solid foundation for mindfulness practice.