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.
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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.
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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.
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. Everyone is welcome!
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
– Thomas Merton
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 look at the impact of trying to reject our "wanting selves." Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to have or be familiar with the book.
If we push away desire, we disconnect from our tenderness and we harden against life. We become like a “rock in winter.” When we reject desire, we reject the very source of our love and aliveness.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Marian, Gloria, and Kaye-Lee for 20 minutes of meditation followed by reading and discussion from Presence: the Art of Being at Home with Yourself. We'll wrap up Chapter 19, "Spinning Straw," and perhaps move on to the postscript, titled "The Golden Ticket." There is no need to be familiar with the book. Everyone is welcome!
You have to be someone before you can be no one.
– Tracy Cochran
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi to watch a Mark Nepo video in which he explores how we can better meet life when dropped into its depths. How can giving and caring change the way we show up? Nepo tells a wonderful story about what it takes for our caring gifts to reveal their potential. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and everyone is welcome.
The mind can only take us so far, yet when we "give", we engage our hearts.
– Mark Nepo
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
Join Ken to continue exploring the four trainable skills of awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. This week, we'll carry on reading, discussing, and practicing the skill of connection. Our session will begin with sitting and walking meditation, and everyone is welcome.
The important thing to recognize here is that connection is all about our feelings...In other words, feeling connected is an inner experience.
– Davidson & Dahl
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie, Daniel, and Hazel to read Danny Penman's article titled "Can Mindfulness Meditation Really Reduce Pain and Suffering?" How does pain work in relation to the mind? How can meditation and mindfulness reduce suffering? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
Imaging studies show that mindfulness soothes the brain patterns underlying pain and, over time, these changes take root and alter the structure of the brain itself, so that patients no longer feel pain with the same intensity.
– Danny Penman
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie as we watch a video titled "A Garden of Hope Good: Sister True Dedication about Mother Earth." In it, Activist Sister True Dedication talks about the connection with the earth and 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.
The way we consume depends on how our hearts are. We cannot hope to consume in an awakened way if our heart is not at peace.
– Sister True Dedication
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Lauren as we continue reading Pema Chodron's book Living Beautifully. This week, we'll look at uneasiness and the lack of awareness that underlies our habits and patterns. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
Awakening is not a process of building ourselves up but a process of letting go. It's a process of relaxing in the middle -- the paradoxical, ambiguous middle, full of potential, full of new ways of thinking and seeing.
– Pema Chodron
The phrase "waking up on the wrong side of the bed" dates back at least to 1801, and it shows up in song lyrics from 10cc to the Beastie Boys. This morning, I definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed: resentful, hopeless, and irritable. Ugh.
In The Science Behind Waking Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed, a study points out that circadian rhythms can play a role in our mood. All things being equal, keeping irregular sleeping hours or not getting enough sleep makes us prone to waking up cranky.
We discovered that mood follows a rhythm connected to the body’s internal clock, and the clock’s influence increases as someone stays awake longer.
– Morgan Sherburne
My sleep schedule is pretty consistent, but the past two evenings did go later than usual. Could that have contributed to my morning malaise? It's possible.
Strangely, the topic of waking up on the wrong side of the bed came up in conversation with friends last night. Someone else brought it up and said they deal with this by choosing to acknowledge the challenging thoughts and emotions instead of indulging them.
While I will point you to A Mindful Guide to Navigating Difficult Emotions, I have to say my friend pretty much nailed it.
PS. Turns out that writing about it also helps 😊
Image by Mila Okta Safitri from Pixabay
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Image by THỌ VƯƠNG HỒNG from Pixabay
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
