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.
NOTE
For all the sessions listed below:
Click here to join on Zoom @ 5 PM ET
ONLINE
This Monday, join Kaye-Lee for an ongoing exploration of creative awareness through discussion, reading, reflection, and sharing. We'll continue delving into dharma art as a way of approaching creativity from a place of deeper awareness.
...to thrive, to express ourselves, alright, well, here's the rub: we have to know ourselves. What do you love?
― Ethan Hawke
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Brenda, Gordon, and Jim for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by a reading and discussion of Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach. This week, we will be discussing Chapter 7, "Opening our Heart in the Face of Fear."
We have to face the pain we have been running from.
– Charlotte Joko Beck
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Join Gloria, Marian, and Kaye-Lee to meditate and continue reading Norman Fischer's book The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Boddhisatva Path. We will continue with chapter 1: Imagination
In fact, perception itself, our feeling and experience of being in the world involves raw, creative subjectivity
– Norman Fischer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:45 AM ET
NEW DAYTIME SESSION! ONLINE
Please join Sandi and Darina as we launch a new daytime session. We're excited to bring you readings from Pema Chodron's brand new book, Another Kind of Freedom. In it, Pema looks at the causes of happiness. She writes that "how we work internally with what’s unfolding in our lives" is more important than fixing outer circumstances. Our happiness depends on what we do with our reactions; our mind and emotions.
Only when we stay present with what’s happening does the space open up for us to relax and appreciate ourselves and our world.
– Pema Chodron
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi to listen to an excerpt from a discussion between Pema and Tami Simon, "Opening Up to Vulnerability." We will explore the difference as well as look at whether we can feel regret without guilt.
Let sadness be a connector to humanity.
– Pema Chodron
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
Join Ken this week as we move into the third pillar of Davidson and Dahl's remarkable book "Born to Flourish", which lays out what it means to flourish in this lifetime, and the skills we can develop to that end. We're going to turn our attention to "insight", which is the ability to see how our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs shape our experience.
The only journey is the one within.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie as we explore the work of teacher Toni Packer, starting with a reading of her book, The Wonder of Presence.
Can we intimately watch the way we think, feel, respond -- the manner in which we talk and cry to ourselves.
– Toni Packer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join us as we watch and discuss a video by Lama Rod Owens titled "Embracing Earth, Embracing Self." In this keynote, Lama Rod explores the essential connection between our well-being and the health of our planet. As we confront the challenges of climate change, he addresses how systems of violence, such as capitalism, racism, and patriarchy, intersect with environmental crises and impede sustainability efforts.
👉 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.
My broken heart...is a detailed record of how I have tried to meet the violence of the world with as much openness as possible.
– Lama Rod Owens
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Lauren as we continue reading from the "Section Success and Failure" of Ethan Nichtern's book "Confidence." This week, we'll explore our relationship to success and failure, part of the "Eight Worldly Winds" (praise/blame, success/failure, pain/pleasure, and fame/insignificance.)
If we long to save the whole world, but we can’t deal with our own family and friends, something has gone wrong in our understanding of what it means to be human.
– Ethan Nichtern
The Owen Sound retreat brought us together to learn, explore, and share this past weekend (and dine at Sabitri's, naturally 🍛 ). Our theme was confidence, as in finding a measure of balance when the Eight Worldly Winds threaten to blow us off course. If you're not familiar, these winds can be described as follows:
- Gain and Loss
- Pleasure and Pain
- Praise and Blame
- Success and Failure
The idea is that we suffer to the degree we're attached to, or avoiding, the inevitable ups and downs of having a human life. Confidence, in this sense, is trusting that we can meet the challenges that life will present us, without succumbing to its myriad seductions and repulsions.
Consider the story of the farmer whose horse ran away:
There was an old farmer who used his horse to work his fields. One day, the horse ran away. As the villagers came by, they said, “We're so sorry to hear this. This is such bad luck.” The farmer just shrugged and responded with, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”
A couple of weeks later, the farmer was working outside when he looked up to see his horse running back toward him. But the horse was not alone; it returned to him with an entire herd of horses he could use to work his fields. This time, the villagers came by and said, "What good luck! You have so many horses to help with your farm." The farmer shrugged and said, “Good luck. Bad luck. Who knows?"
A few weeks after that, the farmer's son came over to visit and help his father work on the farm. While trying to tame one of the horses, the farmer’s son fell and broke his leg. The villagers came by again, commenting, “How awful. This is such bad luck.” Once again, the farmer simply shrugged and replied, "Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”
A month later, the farmer’s son was still recovering from his injuries when an army regiment came marching through town. conscripting every able-bodied young man to join them. Because the farmer's son had a broken leg, the regiment ignored him. The villagers arrived yet again, saying, “Amazing! You're so fortunate.”
The farmer shrugged: "Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?"
By practicing mindfulness and cultivating insight, we can develop trust in our capacity to meet what life brings us without being blown off course by what comes and goes.
Photo by lauren lulu taylor on Unsplash
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Nicolas Messifet 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
