Community Meditation is non-profit network of meditation groups. We bring mindfulness and wellness into people’s lives through courses, meditation sittings and group discussions, both in-person and online. By sharing the benefits of meditation and mindfulness, we support the evolution of a wise, caring, and healthy world.
Our network has existed for over a decade and although our roots are Buddhist, we draw on many wisdom traditions as well as contemporary wellness, psychology, and neuroscience. Community Meditation is completely volunteer-based and guided by a council of experienced teachers.
Community Meditation is a Canada Revenue Agency Registered Charity No. 73107 5719 RR0001.
Your donations, either one-time or with a monthly subscription, help us to pay rent, insurance and other basic expenses. We are a volunteer organization and all of our costs are covered by donations and course fees. Online Canadian donors will receive an annual tax receipt for the full amount of their donations in each calendar year.
One-Time Donation Monthly Donation
NOTE: For monthly donations, use the Qty button to adjust the amount in units of $5. For example, a Qty of "3" is 3 x 5 = $15.
All online sessions, except our short morning sessions, include a 20-minute silent meditation. New to meditation? Instruction is available.
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Click here to join on Zoom @ 8:45 AM ET
Looking for a mindful start to your day? We're launching silent group meditations from 8:45 to 9 AM ET, Monday to Friday. There is no meditation instruction available in these sessions–if you'd like instruction, email hello@communitymeditation.net.
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Please join Brenda, Gordon, and Jim for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by a reading of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up by Koshin Paley Ellison. This week, we'll explore chapter 5, "Relaxing into Suffering". There's no need to have or be familiar with the book.
So much of doing good is really just about learning how to relax in the face of whatever is in front of us,
– Koshin Paley Ellison
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Join Kaye Lee, Marian, and Gloria this week for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by a reading and discussion from Tracy Cochran's Presence: the Art of Being at Home in Yourself. This week, we'll continue to read from the chapter, "We're in it Now." There's no need to have read the book, and everyone is welcome.
Moment by moment, we learn what the first inhabitants of this land knew and what the oldest people know: We are part of life, not separate.
– Tracy Cochran
Click here for directions
IN-PERSON – MISSISSAUGA
Join us on Wednesday to gather in person and collectively explore a book or article and discuss what arises. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of meditation, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
...if you're not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you're not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into it. You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.
― Jon Kabat-Zinn
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
This week, join Adam, Lauren, and Sandi as we read and discuss Mark Nepo's book, You Don't Have To Do It Alone. In a chapter titled "Three friends of winter", Nepo uses an ancient tale to explore the boundaries of true friendship. He invites us to question relationships that require self-betrayal and reminds us that genuine friends encourage our wholeness, not our self-erasure. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
Give me your hand, meet with me, simply, don't look for anything in my words beyond the emanation of a bare plant.
– Pablo Neruda
Click here to visit our Meetup
IN-PERSON – OWEN SOUND
Join Ken to explore the role of speech as both action and mindfulness practice. We'll begin our session with 35 minutes of sitting and walking meditation. Everyone is welcome!
When we are open to the difficult emotions, we are able to generate responses that are aligned with our values.
- Susan David
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie to read "Everything is our teacher, even death" by Barbara Rhodes. How can death teach us more about life? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
Tremendous healing can occur during the dying process, both for the dying person and for their family and friends.
– Barbara Rhodes
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie as we explore "Climate Grief, Communal Power" by Kritee Kanko. How does community help us relate to the anger and grief of climate change? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
Friday EcoDharma sessions are designed for those experiencing anxiety or grief relating to environmental issues. The aim is to bring mindfulness and Buddhist practices to our distress, and to build community.
It is time to not just acknowledge individual-level grief and rage but to also acknowledge our collective emotions around the rapidly escalating climate emergency as well as other interlocking crises.
– Kritee Kanko
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
Join Debbie and Darina this Sunday to read chapter "The Brilliant Human Mind" from Michael Singer's Living Untethered book. We can notice how the brain assembles a personal sense of the world, and then refer to that picture rather than being present. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation. There's no need to be familiar with the book.
The moment in front of you is the result of all the natural forces that caused it to be as it is. The preference system in your mind is the result of the past experiences you couldn't handle. These are two completely different sets of forces that have nothing to do with each other.
– Michael Singer
An exchange between Tim Ferris and author Elizabeth Gilbert caught my attention this past week. Gilbert said:
I’ve gotten what I wanted a lot in life and it almost killed me. So I’m not so interested anymore in what I want. I am good at manifesting what I want, and I’m good at almost dying from getting what I want. So maybe there’s a better question to be asking than, “What do I want?”
For most of us, the question of what we want is so deeply ingrained it's invisible. We assume that the point of each minute, month, or lifetime is to get what we want. We ache for the positive side of the Eight Worldly Concerns ledger: fame, gain, praise, and pleasure. As Gilbert points out, it's not only unrealistic to be constantly striving for these; getting what we want might prove to be downright painful.
What would a better question look like? Gilbert suggests this:
What would you have me know?
This can be interpreted as a dialogue between 'I' and 'thou,' where the self attains specific knowledge. But the "you" isn't necessarily a higher power. It could also be understood as "mystery", or perhaps "reality". It's a way of opening to just this, and it works by cutting against the grain of ego. Come to think of it, "that which wants" is a decent definition of ego!
Finally, the "know" in Gilbert's question might be expressed as "wisdom" or "prajna"; not the acquisition of facts or information, but a profound recognition of impermanence and inter-being. To the extent that we ease up on wanting and open ourselves to the mystery, craving is diminished. We shift toward wonder. We experience suchness.
As David Whyte writes in his poem "Everything Is Waiting for You":
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
If everything is waiting for you, what are you waiting for?
--
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by remi skatulski on Unsplash
We started this meditation network to help you bring more clarity, balance, caring and joy to your life and your community.
The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer.
― Thomas Merton
