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 @ 5 PM ET
Join Kaye-Lee for our new Monday exploration of Dharma Art, a way of approaching creativity from a place of deeper awareness or mindfulness. Together, we'll learn what Dharma Art is, and through discussion, readings, and creative shares, how to move our creativity through that place of awareness. We will begin by reading True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art, by Chogyam Trungpa. Our reading list will expand with other viewpoints as we explore this path. Everyone is welcome
Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.
– Alain de Botton
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 Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach. This week, we'll continue reading a section of Chapter 3 titled "When We Stop Running: Becoming Available to the Life of the Moment." Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to have or be familiar with the book.
This attitude of neither grasping nor pushing away any experience has come to be known as the Middle Way, and it characterizes the engaged presence we awaken in pausing.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Please join Gloria, Kaye‐ Lee, and Marian for 20 minutes of meditation followed by the reading and discussion of the "Saturday in New York with Gatajili" chapter in Tracy Cochran's book Presence: The Art of Being at Home in Yourself. There's no need to be familiar with the book, and all are welcome.
I don't feel safe in Delhi, she told me, but I feel safe in G. B. Road.
– Tracy Cochran
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi as we read from "The Book of Joy", a conversation between Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. In the initial chapter, "Arrival, we are fragile creatures", they explore how experiencing joy might affect other emotions and feelings. Bring your curiosity, and we'll explore together. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
...discovering joy does not save us from hardship or heartbreak....we can have hardship without becoming hard and heartbreak without being broken.
– The Book of Joy
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
Join Wayne on Thursday for sitting and walking meditation, followed by a reflection on the themes of goodwill and care. What would it mean to make your heart and mind bigger than the world? Everyone is welcome.
Goodwill is not a Pollyanna kind of wish, thinking that everybody’s going to be good, therefore I’ll be good to them. It’s because people are not going to be good many times that you’ve got to be good to them.
– Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie, Stephanie, and Daniel as we explore Allegra Cohen's practices around tiny moments of joy. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
...tiny, powerful moments [of joy can] reset your energy — like laughing at a memory...Each one lifts your mood and builds resilience, even on the hard days.
– Allegra Cohen
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie as we explore Willa Blythe Baker's "Meeting Climate Change with 5 Practices." What practices can help us relate to our fear and grief about the climate? 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.
Even though their roots are ancient, these practices are timely as we encounter the truth of suffering on a global scale.
– Willa Blythe Baker
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Join Debbie to read Ethan Nichtern's book, Confidence. In the "Pleasure and Pain" chapter, we can look at how and why we're so averse to pain and so grasping of pleasure. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation. There's no need to be familiar with the book.
When we slow down, we can see that many of the observations that we attach to raw experiences don't mean what we thought they did.
– Ethan Nichtern
Whether you've harboured resentment or been the target of it, you know how challenging and corrosive it can be. It's possible to work with this ill will either way, and we begin by spotting it. That may seem obvious, but in my experience, resentment can reside as a shadow in me or be veiled–consciously or otherwise–in another.
Working with resentment, whether in yourself or toward others, involves a practice of recognizing and transforming that energy into something more productive and peaceful.
– SharonBot*
Resentment is an emotion. Allowing it to simply exist, with curiosity rather than judgement, has tremendous power. This is reflected in the second step of Tara Brach's RAIN, a skillful approach to the experience of resentment:
With sustained practice, RAIN can significantly reduce our resentment or even release it completely.
Another aspect of working with resentment is forgiveness. By cultivating compassion for the other person, by recognizing that, "just like me", they want to be happy, we may eventually choose to release our resentment toward the person who has caused us harm.
...forgiveness refers to the actor, not the act — not the offense but the woundedness of the offender.
– Judith Orloff, MD
To paraphrase Alexander Pope: to resent is human, to transform and release is divine.
* SharonBot is an AI based on the teachings of Sharon Salzberg, from the generous folks at Awakin.org.
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Tine Ivanič 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
