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.
🧘
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 @ 7 PM ET
Please join Brenda, Gordon, and Jim for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by a reading of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up by Koshin Paley Ellison. This week, we'll be reading and discussing Chapter 15, "Allowing Anger to Flow by Not Fearing It." Join us for a timely discussion about anger, an emotion that's baked into being human. Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to have or be familiar with the book..
Think for a moment about what it would be like to not blame anyone for your own feelings. What would it be like to use anger as something to move with, rather than hold on to?
– Koshin Paley Ellison
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Join Kaye-Lee, Gloria, and Marian for 20 minutes of meditation, followed by a reading and discussion from Tracy Cochran’s book PRESENCE. This week, we continue with the chapter, “A Good Start,” as the author employs skillful storytelling to pique curiosity and foster heartfelt responses. Please join us to explore this story's perspective on historical happenings.
It woke me up to the strange reality that we are all doing the same thing - all of us floating along in our own bubbles, lost in our own stories, the center of our tiny universes.
– Tracy Cochran
IN-PERSON – MISSISSAUGA
Join us in person on Wednesday as we gather to explore topics such as meditation, mindfulness, compassion, Buddhism, and other related subjects. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of meditation, and there are no prerequisites to participate.
Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi to continue reading the final section of Mark Nepo's delightful book, The Power Of Friendship. In the "Art of Timing" chapter, we consider how mastering the art of timing means letting the situation inform us. When do we quietly stay close without interfering? When do we offer more specific support? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation. There's no need to be familiar with the book.
To hurry pain is to leave the classroom still in session. To prolong pain is to remain in a vacated classroom and miss the next lesson
– Yahia Lababidi
IN-PERSON – OWEN SOUND
There's a fine line between following a meditation path and getting mired in the maze of self-improvement. Join Ken to tease apart the practice of mindfulness from a (subtle or overt) drive to improve ourselves. Our session will begin with tea and hanging out, followed by 35 minutes of sitting and walking meditation, and then a shared discussion of "The Self-Improvement Trap."
Mindfulness can change us, and can lead to effective change, but while this takes effort, it doesn’t come from striving.
– Ed Halliwell
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie, Daniel, and Stephanie to read the Tricycle article "Practice Questioning," by Narayan Helen Liebenson. Liebenson explores which questions lead us to awareness and presence. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and all are welcome.
Questioning in a meditative way doesn’t demand an answer. We come to this art of inquiry with an attitude of openheartedness. We familiarize ourselves with silence, because wise questions and fruitful responses arise out of silence. We practice relinquishing our preconceptions about how things should be.
– Narayan Helen Liebenson
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie to continue watching a video by David Loy, the author of Ecodharma. In it, Loy discusses how the ecological crisis intersects with Buddhist teachings. We're watching selected parts of the video, and there's no need to have seen prior parts. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
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.
Hope and despair are dualities. I don’t think it’s hope and despair that motivate bodhisattvas. I think it’s something deeper.
– David Loy
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
This Sunday, join Debbie and Hazel to read and discuss Michael Singers book Living Untethered. In this chapter, we explore the energies of the heart: opening, flowing, closing, and protecting. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation. There's no need to be familiar with the book.
If you want to continue feeling love, you have to learn how to deal with emotions that open and close the heart. It's like learning to play an instrument. At first, you don't know how to do it. You're going to make mistakes and learn from the experience.
– Michael Singer
I will not write about the Blue Jays.
I will not write about the Blue Jays.
I will not write about the Blue Jays.
OK, I'm writing about the Blue Jays (sort of).
I don't follow any sports much, and of the sports I might tune into, baseball is not high on my list. But when the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team found its way into the World Series (a misnomer, let's be honest), I was, like millions of other Canadians, swept up in the drama. On Saturday, at home in Toronto, after 7 games, after 11 innings in the 7th game, the Jays lost a twisting, diving rollercoaster of a series.
On Sunday morning, this from The Globe and Mail's Cathal Kelly:
...the whole point of caring about a bunch of strangers who get paid a thousand times what you do to run around in stretchy pants...they give you big feelings...When the feelings are finally delivered, nobody guarantees they will be good.
The practice of mindfulness meditation is sometimes framed as a way to bliss out and avoid difficult feelings, but that's a misunderstanding. To be human is to experience emotion, often deeply. As far as we know, it's a trait that's unique to our species. But in the relative world, there's no up without down, no smiles without tears.
After a loss like this one, especially for the truly committed, it's tempting to fight the powerful, negative emotions by endlessly rehashing the coulda-shoulda-woulda's. We'd do better, however, to follow Elaine Smookler's advice and invite our emotions in for tea:
It makes sense that you might not want to invite in distressing thoughts and emotions. But when they are already in, avoiding them doesn’t seem to do anything except to cause them to roar all the more.
Is it a stretch to suggest we should be grateful for the capacity to feel so deeply, even though it's unavoidably painful at times? In the words of the inimitable Yogi Berra:
If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be.
☯️
--
🙏
Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Jimmy Conover 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
