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
Join Kaye-Lee in a contemplative journey into the elements of mindful creativity, in the many forms it might take. Everyone is welcome.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
– Albert Einstein
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Brenda, Jim, and Gordon for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by a reading and discussion of Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha. This week, we continue reading and discussing Chapter 10, "Widening the Circles of Compassion".
The tender gravity of kindness naturally awakens as we pay attention to others.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
You are invited to join Kaye-Lee, Marian, and Gloria to meditate, and then read and share our thoughts about Norman Fischer's bookThe World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path. In Chapter 3, "The Perfection of Ethical Conduct", we consider that ethical conduct isn't of the usual sort; it's ethical conduct beyond ethical conduct. Everyone is welcome.
Sit down and pay attention to your body. Now pay attention to your breath as it goes in and out as your stomach rises and falls. Rest in each exhale.
– Norman Fischer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:45 AM ET
NEW DAYTIME SESSION! ONLINE
Please join Sandi, Darina, and Anita for our daytime session, in which we're exploring Pema Chodron's book, Another Kind of Freedom. What arose out of last week's discussion was the state of boredom. We'll continue to explore this seemingly empty state by reading Oliver Burkeman's article "The truth about distraction". Burkeman reminds us that "whenever I’m able to recall that the urge to distract myself can be observed without being acted upon, the effect is quasi-magical".
Boredom descends whenever you wish something was happening other than what’s happening now, and can’t do anything about it.
- Oliver Burkeman
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Join Lauren, Sandi, and Adam for Thich Nhat Hanh's beautifully rich teachings on how suffering and happiness are not separate. Through the image of a lotus growing from mud, he invites us to meet life’s difficult emotions with mindfulness and compassion. Can we discover how challenges can become opportunities for greater understanding, resilience, and joy?
If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses. If you know how to make good use of suffering, you can produce happiness.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
Continuing with Norman Fischer's wise article titled "Life is Tough. Here Are Six Ways to Deal With It", we encounter this 5th recommendation: Do Good, Avoid Evil, Appreciate Your Lunacy, Pray for Help. Wait, what? Join Ken to unpack these intriguing and provocative suggestions. Everyone is welcome.
NOTE: Harmony Centre has a new door lock, and we can't make sure it stays open, so please use the doorbell to the right of the door.
So we pay attention to what we say, think, and do—not obsessively, not with a perfectionist flair, but just as a matter of course and with generosity and understanding.
― Norman Fischer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Hazel to read and discuss Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness. Kabat-Zinn is the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, one of the most widely used mainstream meditation programmes. He is also the founder of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society.
The practice of watching your thoughts from moment to moment can be profoundly liberating.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Daniel and Daniel M. as we watch a Joanna Macy video titled "Fall in love with what is", from Climate Day 2021. Together, we'll look at how we might combine the love of what is with the challenges of climate change!
👉 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.
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Darina and Sandi as we continue to read Pema Chodron's book, Living Beautifully. The "Nowhere to Hide" chapter lays out the difficulties of being fully present. Can we surrender to life, rejecting nothing? Perhaps not yet, but, as Debbie often says, we can notice what we want to reject!
The practice demands that I be sane, demanding that I grow up, and I wasn’t used to that yet.
– Pema Chodron
If I asked you to list your top three meditation experiences, what would they be? For example:
- Slowing down of thoughts
- Feeling pleasure in the body
- Becoming absorbed in a sound or smell
Each of these experiences, and many more, is delightful, and they can motivate us to continue our practice. But there's a catch: they can become sticking points or benchmarks against which we measure our progress.
Let's say I have a particularly quiet and spacious sitting on Tuesday morning. Maybe even a sudden intuition regarding a crusty co-worker. Ah, what a marvellous way to start the day! Now Wednesday comes along, and my sitting is a mental and emotional thunderstorm, complete with an inexplicably sore left ankle. Ugh!
Ugh? You see, the mind that seeks pleasurable experiences is the same mind that creates unpleasant ones. Our task is to be mindful of that paradox and welcome each experience as it is.
Bring to mind the dangers of expectations and be gentle with yourself. Find enjoyment in every meditation, no matter what happens. There is no such thing as a "bad" meditation.
– John Yates.
When embarking on a sitting meditation practice, play the long game. There will be wonderful, neutral, and crappy* experiences. Our undertaking is to invite them in for tea, one and all. In this way, we uncover what's beyond experiences, beyond the mind of pleasant and unpleasant. We realize the ever-present ground of being. We are home.
* See the little-known "Dung Sutra" for details.
Note: This article was originally published on August 11, 2025.
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Anders Jildén 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
