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.
A Community Meditation weekend retreat
Owen Sound | June 6/7, 2026
How can we become calmer and more balanced in a time of accelerating social, technological, and environmental change? Join Ken Dow and Debbie McCubbin to explore this question through a unique and transformative mix of mindfulness, awareness, breathwork, discussion, and related practices.
All online sessions, except our short morning sessions, include a 20-minute silent meditation. New to meditation? Instruction is available.
🧘
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
This Monday, join Kaye-Lee as we continue to explore creative awareness by discussing, reading, and sharing. We'll continue delving into dharma art as a way of approaching creativity from a place of deeper awareness. Everyone is welcome!
We are curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
– Walt Disney
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 and discussion of Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach. This week, we begin Chapter 6, "Radical Acceptance of Desire." Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to have or be familiar with the book.
We are mindful of desire when we experience it with an embodied awareness, recognizing the sensations and thoughts of wanting as arising and passing phenomena.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Join Kaye-Lee, Marian, and Gloria as we begin our gathering with 20 minutes of silent meditation. We will follow with readings from the "Finding the Path" chapter in Tracy Cochran's book Presence: the Art of Being at Home in Yourself. All are welcome, and there is no need to be familiar with the book. Bring your curiosity.
I remember walking to the meditation hall with others as the bell sounded, feeling as if I was being led out of a wilderness onto an ancient path. It was as if the bell was a torch that was passed down from a distant path to lead me out of the isolation of my ordinary mind and towards greater awareness.
– Tracy Cochran
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi as we take a deeper look at curiosity. Do you remember as a child, grabbing things, intently looking at them, and feeling wonder and fascination arise? What is this thing I've grabbed?! Curiosity lets us take the time to know something. Can we apply this to our relationships?
I feel like there are 2 fundamental aspects of living..."being" and "doing". Curiosity, I feel, is a quality of "being". A curious mind is a kind that expands and grows.
– Sunitha Ramadurai
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
Training ourselves with the skills of awareness, connection, insight, and purpose will open up entirely new ways of being–and doing. This week, join Ken to continue with the practice of awareness. Our session will begin with sitting and walking meditation, and everyone is welcome.
Feeling relaxed is not what makes a good meditation. Sometimes the most fruitful meditations can be filled with thoughts and emotions. The key is awareness.
– Healthy Minds Initiative
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Daniel to read an article by Rosalie Dores called "How Can Mindfulness Affect Climate Change?" Let's explore together why we often turn away from knowing more about climate change, and how we can bring mindfulness and curiosity to that disconnection. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
...the biggest challenge to meeting climate change mindfully is the tendency to want to close down when we feel anxious or fearful in any way.
– Rosalie Dores
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
This week, we continue with a series of introductions to teachers in the mindfulness/climate space. David Loy, a well-known author and teacher, talks about the union of care for the planet with mindfulness/Buddhism. Join Debbie to read his article, "EcoDharma: A New Buddhist Path." How can we take our typically individually-focused mindfulness and awareness path and see how it relates to the collective issue of the climate crisis? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation. There's no need to be familiar with the book.
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.
Ecodharma is a new word for a new development in contemporary Buddhism, in response to our dangerous situation today.
– David Loy
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Lauren to continue reading the book Confidence by Ethan Nichtern. In the "Praise and Blame" chapter, we'll explore how to give feedback in a caring and mindful way. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
Like pleasure and pain, praise and criticism are experiences that don't stop with the physical body. They extend to our sense of who we are, to our relationships, and to the groups in which we all seek acceptance and validation. Remembering your inherent sensitivity as a human, you can take your seat more mindfully and attend to receiving and giving feedback with the care and attention it deserves.
– Ethan Nichtern
Meditation. The word conjures up everything from saffron robes to smartphone apps. Whatever it evokes, I'd be willing to bet that, for most of us, our initial grasp of it involved emptying the mind.
I’m new to meditation and was wondering if the goal is to be able to have 0 thoughts for a long period of time?
– lasiangirl89, on Reddit
I have nothing against an empty mind. A mind free of thoughts? Pure bliss, no doubt about it. The trouble starts when we think that's the point of meditation and set it up as our goal. Once that's in place, our practice can go sideways in at least two ways:
Either of these outcomes can set up a good vs. bad struggle that subverts our practice. What's a dharrma bum to do?
What if we let our thoughts be, while simultaneously holding them in awareness? This is sometimes referred to as meta-awareness, and it applies to emotions and sensations as well. Instead of pushing thoughts away or being consumed by them, we observe them.
If you don’t allow your mind to open and to connect with where you are, with the immediacy of your experience, you could easily become completely submerged.
– Pema Chödrön
One way to cultivate meta-awareness is to become curious about our experience. We sidestep the thinking/not thinking struggle and just take note of what's going on. Welcome to meta-awareness, one of those rare instances in which you can have your cake and eat it, too 🍰
--
🙏
Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Emma Simpson 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
