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.
Click here to join on Zoom @ 5 PM ET
Join Kaye-Lee to explore our innate creative awareness through discussion, readings, and shares. We'll be reading and exploring Chogyam Trungpa's book True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art, which considers dharma art as a way of approaching creativity from a place of deeper awareness. Everyone is welcome!
...all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind.
― Eckhart Tolle
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 from Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach. This week, we begin chapter 5, "Coming Home to Our Body: The Ground of Radical Acceptance." Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to have or be familiar with the book.
When we meet arising sensations with Radical Acceptance, instead of losing ourselves in grasping and resisting, we begin the process of freeing ourselves from the stories that separate us.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Please join Marian, Kaye-Lee, and Gloria as we move into "The Whole Truth," the fourth part of Tracy Cochran's memoir Presence: The Art of Being at Home in Yourself. We'll start with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and then read and discuss parts of "The Butternut Goddess" chapter that touch us in some way. Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
When we let go of who we think we are and just sense how it feels to be here, alive and breathing, we remember that the body is not separate from life, but open to it and nourished and supported by it.
– Tracy Cochran
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi as we read and discuss Pema Chödrön's book, Welcoming the Unwelcome. We can all appreciate how hard it is to avoid uttering harmful words; Pema explores some helpful practices. Can we become more aware of our speech without the guilt? Bring your curiosity, and we'll explore this together. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
The grooves in our brain deepen with each repetitive thought (as with our speech and actions) and form habitual patterns, beliefs and attitudes. These patterns increase our propensity to separate ourselves from others.
– Pema Chodron
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
In "Meditations for Mortals", Oliver Burkeman explores how we might approach having a finite human life. Join Ken to read and discuss Burkeman's ideas in a chapter titled "Let the future be the future." Our session will begin with sitting and walking meditation. Everyone is welcome.
...we're hopelessly trapped in the present, confined to this temporal locality, unable even to stand on tiptoes and peer over the fence, to check that everything's all right there.
– Oliver Burkeman
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Daniel to read an article by Josh Korda titled "You Are Not Broken." Our struggles are often treated as if they are personal when in reality they may be reflecting inequities and dysfunction in the larger society. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
We live in a society that teaches us to turn inward with our pain. When we struggle, we’re told to seek therapy, take meds, or meditate—all valuable tools, but incomplete on their own when we’re in an environment that’s causing us to suffer.
– Josh Korda
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie to read and discuss Britt Wray's Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety, which considers our emotions about the climate crisis and how we might relate to them. Wray explores how to meet our emotions about climate with understanding, wisdom, and compassion. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation. There's no need to have 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.
It became clear to me that the keys to transformation are wise communication and building bridges across our divides, as well as supporting young people to deal with the dangers they are inheriting.
– Britt Wray
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Lauren as we continue to read Pema Chodron's book Living Beautifully. In the "Laying the Foundation" section, we'll consider the uneasiness and lack of awareness underneath 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.
Refraining from harmful speech and action is outer renunciation; choosing not to escape the underlying feelings is inner renunciation.
– Pema Chodron
Psst! Can I tell you something? I don't feel like writing today. I've cast about on my bookshelf, on Tricycle, on my phone, but my motivation is still flatter than a Saskatchewan dime. This is pretty rare for me. Usually, there's already something percolating in my mind, or I'm readily intrigued by a video, song, or article. Today? Meh.
Meditation and mindfulness practices can be like this. You know what to do. You have the time and place. But...you don't want to. In Meditations for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman touches on this stuckness in the context of writing:
The alternative to the stare-at-the-screen approach to writing is 'freewriting,' in which you set a time-based quantity goal – ten minutes, say – then write, without stopping, until your timer goes. off.
Think of it as the MVM: Minimum Viable Meditation. Maybe that's two minutes, or five. The idea is to bypass your resistance by making the amount of effort almost comically small. In One Small Step Can Change Your Life, Robert Maurer writes:
If you ever feel yourself dreading the activity or making excuses for not performing it, it's time to cut back on the size of the step.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you're somehow failing unless you meditate for at least a minute every day. Life happens. Some days you will, some days you won't. The point is that you might overcome a lack of inspiration by setting a short timer. Hey, it worked for this article 😉
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
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
