Happy New Year - 2011!

May the new year be better than this one for all the people of the Earth! May we all live in peace, love and harmony!

From Anne Sophie, Jun - Dec 2010

Some cherished moments from 2010:

30-Day Meditation Challenge

Ever since I started reading Erich Fromm (one of the biggest influences in my life) at the age of 17, I've always been drawn to meditation. I have this deep rooted idea that meditation must be a great and probably indispensible tool in personal and global development. If we wish to advance further on the path of developing our intrinsically human abilities to think, love, feel, if we wish to develop compassion and a sense of oneness with the world, meditation should be the key.

In the past 20 years I've made numerous attempts to start meditation practice. To name a few, I tried concentration exercises; I did a meditation course with the following of Shri Chinmoy while living in Minks, Belarus and then in Oslo, Norway; I followed a meditation course and then practice with a Zen Buddhist monk in Leiden, Netherlands. However, sadly enough, I have not been able to develop a long lasting meditation habit.

Inspired by Steve Pavlina's idea of 30-day trials to try out things and develop habits, as of today I am embarking on the 30-day challenge of daily meditation. I'll be meditating daily as I wake up and maybe also before I go to bed. I'll be  using some guided meditations by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Let's see if I can turn this into a daily routine going beyond the 30 days.

I've already meditated several times in the past couple of weeks. Today early in the morning I did my first in this series of 30 meditations. It is not easy, the mind is wandering all the time, and I sometimes even miss the instructions. However, according to Jon, it's OK. It is the nature of the mind to wander, think, daydream, jump from one thing to another. The crux of the meditation practice, as I understand it now, is to be able to observe the mind doing so, to realize that we are not the body or mind or thinking, that we can watch and study those things within ourselves and learn from them. It is actually quite amazing. The important thing is to carry on with the practice no matter what. And that's why a 30-day challenge is such a great idea!

Last year I pursued a 30-day journaling challenge, and I did write an entry in my journal for 30 consecutive days, but after that I stopped. Let's see if this attempt will be more successful!

Dad's birthday

Today my dear father Moisey (Misha) Levin would have turned 73 years old. There is something mystical about these digits 7 and 3 this year. My father was born in 1937. I was born in 1973 and I am turning 37 this year. Well, if you think about it, it is not quite so mysterious:
1973 - 1937 = 36. 36 + 37 = 73. 1973 + 37 = 1937 + 73 = 2010.

Every year on this day I remember my dad (actually, I think about him almost every day). Often I can't help crying, when I think about him and about his early, sudden passing away.

Strangely, the image that comes to my mind most often and most vividly is that of me (being 15 or 16 years old) hugging him tightly and trying to lift him up. Another one is of me at the age of 4 or so, climbing all over him and playing with his beard as he is sitting in an armchair, looking into the distance, thinking his thoughts. Yet another thing that I can almost feel in the present is the touch of his warm, bread hand against my hand.

I also vividly remember the morning of Sunday, March 28, 1993, the day when he passed away. He was in a cheerful mood, was concerned about my studies and offering to help. I just told him that it's ok, that I can handle it, and went on puzzling over a piece of mathematical research, which I never really finished ...

He was a good man, a father and human being to be proud of. I'll write more about him some day. Rest in peace, dear papa.