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.
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For all the sessions listed below:
Click here to join on Zoom @ 5 PM ET
ONLINE
How might the strands of mindfulness and creative practice intertwine? Please join Kaye-Lee to explore this question in tangible ways. What happens when we slow down with intention and turn towards the creative? Let's find out!
You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
― Maya Angelou
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 Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach. This week we'll read and discuss the "Reaching For Compassion" section from Chapter 8.
The suffering that might have seemed "too much" can awaken us to the sweetness of compassion.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
You are welcome to join Marian, Gloria, Kaye-Lee, and Sandi as we delve further into Norman Fischer's The World Could Be Otherwise and the chapter, "The Perfection of Generosity". Be ready for Fischer to discuss traditional teachings before translating them into our modern culture.
To practice generosity you have to actually do generous actions. You have to give gifts.
– Norman Fischer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:45 AM ET
NEW DAYTIME SESSION! ONLINE
Please join Sandi and Darina for our daytime session. We're happy to bring you readings from Pema Chodron's book, Another Kind of Freedom. What is egolessness? Pema details how our sense of having a continuous, solid "self' is an illusion—we are constantly changing.
If we don’t overcrowd or obstruct anything with a big sense of 'me,' we enjoy a sense of spaciousness. There’s a feeling of tremendous room, a feeling of infinite possibilities. The less ego one has, the more one can relax and appreciate the world and other beings.
– Pema Chodron
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Lauren, Adam, and Sandi invite you to explore attachment through a Buddhist lens. Can we notice how clinging creates suffering, and how letting go makes room for compassion, steadiness, and freedom?
We may have suffered a lot because of our attachment to those things, but we don’t have the courage to release them; it doesn’t feel safe to do so.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
What would it mean to stop suffering? Join Ken this week as we explore Byron Katie's book and practice titled "The Work". In it, Katie lays out a path to freedom that relies on questioning our thoughts in a specific way.
Katie saw that when she believed her thoughts she suffered, and that when she didn’t believe her thoughts she didn’t suffer.
– From The Work, by Byron Katie
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Daniel as we watch a Ram Dass video titled "How to Meditate", along with an article about our motivations to meditate.
We're fascinated by the words, but where we meet is in the silence behind them.
– Ram Dass
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie as we read the introduction of Robert MacFarlane's new book, Is a River Alive?, which looks at what makes a living river, and how we might think differently about it.
👉 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.
This book is a journey into an idea that changes the world–the idea that a river is alive.
– Robert MacFarlane
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie as we continue reading Pema Chodron's book Living Beautifully. In the section titled "Breathing in Pain, Breathing out Relief", Pema introduces us to a compassion practice called Tonglen. We'll delve into both the formal practice and a brief on-the-spot practice.
Tonglen is...a core practice for warriors in training, the most effective tool for developing courage and arousing our sense of oneness with others.
– Pema Chodron
Have you ever contemplated the magical power of practice? It's pretty incredible that a human can go from barely being able to crawl to becoming Tony Hawk. Or from being born in a farmhouse to becoming Kate Bush. Let's not forget the 91-year journey of a newborn in rural Tibet becoming the 14th Dalai Lama!
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
– Bruce Lee
Right now, as you read these words, you're in the process of becoming. You were someone else two years ago, and you will be someone different again two years from now. The farther back you look, the more different you will have been. Future you? That depends heavily on what she practices. There are limits, of course. At 5'4", no amount of practice was going to make Kate Bush a world-class basketball player.
Here's the thing about practice: we're already doing it most of the time*. The difference is that we're doing it unconsciously. For example, we might be:
The list goes on, but you get the drift. Each thought, feeling, and action is a form of practice. It strengthens, it habituates. We get better at–and more likely to–worry, overeat, or judge. As Carla Shatz memorably put it, "neurons that fire together, wire together".
If we aspire to consciously shape our becoming, the cheat code is awareness. Why? Because awareness practice can reveal our habitual, unconscious practices. It makes them visible so we can work with them. Take me, for example. Let's say I:
Instead of strengthening my habit of worrying, I'm both cultivating the ability to be present and taking positive steps to manage my financial situation. Each time I notice, pause, set an intention, and return to nowness, I bend the arc of my becoming ever so slightly. Eventually, I rarely worry, considering my financial situation from time to time and acting on it as needed.
We become what we practice. Choose wisely.
* Hat tip to Adam Lobel for this insight from a talk he gave at a certain Bloor Street venue many years ago.
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Jake Weirick 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
