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
Please join Kaye-Lee to continue our exploration into the crossroads of mindfulness and creative practices. What emerges when we intentionally slow down? Let's find out!
Uniqueness is the seed of community; plant it.
– Unknown
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 begin discussing chapter 8, Awakening Compassion for Ourselves: Becoming the Holder and the Held.
All you need is already within you, only you must approach yourself with reverence and love.
-- Sri Nisargadatta
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Join Kaye-Lee, Marian, and Gloria as we continue reading and discussing Norman Fischer's The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path. Please join us for Chapter 2, "The Perfection of Generosity."
[The] Boddhisatva path is radical; it involves a fundamental shift in our approach to life.
– 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. This is the concept of egolessness: the nonexistence of an ongoing self.
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
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi as we continue reading an article titled "Gassho (合掌). Breakups can test the relationship with our mind, and so we can bring wise attention to bear. Are we ruminating? Can we interrupt reactive speech?
When the mind loops, we can gently redirect to what is actually happening in this moment. This isn't denial: it's training our attention not to be kidnapped by the same storyline every hour. Over time, you learn that you can hold memory without being swallowed by it.
– Unknown
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
This week, we wrap up our exploration of the book Born to Flourish with a review of the four pillars (Awareness, Connection, Insight, Purpose) and the key steps toward leading a flourishing life: inspiration, intention, action, and repetition.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
– Aristotle
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie as we watch a Joseph Goldstein's video titled "Help Anxiety with Meditation." In this video, Goldstein is interviewed by Dan Harris of 10% Happier on various topics, including anxiety.
When fear arises the body gets anxious, there’s vibration and anxiety, but we could see that it’s okay to feel that way, we don’t have to run from it.
– Joseph Goldstein
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie in watching a video by Bayo Akomolafe that considers whether there is a solution for the issue of climate change. Bayo Akomolafe talks about reframing how we think about the climate crisis.
👉 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.
What if the ways we think about the climate crisis IS the crisis?
– Bayo Akomolafe
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Lauren as we continue reading Ethan Nichtern's book, Confidence. As part of a series about the "Eight Worldly Winds" (praise/blame, success/failure, pain/pleasure, and fame/insignificance), we'll continue to look at our relationship to success and failure.
[Practice working with the comparative mind] helps slowly unravel the scarcity mentality–the notion that another person's fulfillment comes at your expense. It may also help you gain insight into what you actually long for, instead of focusing on what another person might have.
– Ethan Nichtern
Chacahua National Park is located in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, about an hour from Puerto Escondido. The park encompasses 130 square kilometres and is host to several lagoons, each connected to the ocean for at least part of the year. As a result, the lagoons are around 60% salt water and 40% fresh water. At 7 PM last Saturday night, in darkness, a group of us sat in a small boat that rocked gently in the middle of one of those lagoons.
Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise. Might as well burst out laughing.
– Lama Surya Das
When the signal was given, we slipped overboard into the warm, pitch-black water. Above us, Mars and Venus glowed in a sea of stars. As delightful as they were, we hadn't come for the boat ride or the night sky. When we began to swim, however, the movements of our hands and feet produced trails of glittering sparks in the water: bioluminescence!
There are always flowers for those who want to see them.
– Henri Matisse
At this time of year, the lagoon is home to phytoplankton and zooplankton. When the surface of the lagoon is disturbed, these plankton emit light. So, as I swam, beads of light trailed off my fingers and then vanished into the blackness.
All of this brings me to wholeness. We may drop into wholeness during a deep meditation, at the mere sight of a flag rippling in the breeze. or in a lagoon teeming with tiny life forms that produce light. We are not separate, have never been separate, and this absurdly beautiful cosmos waits patiently for us to rediscover that.
We are here to awaken from the illusion of separateness
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Note: This article was originally published on February 21, 2022.
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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
