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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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 washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
– Pablo Picasso
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 continue Chapter 6, "Radical Acceptance of Desire." Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to have or be familiar with the book.
It's not hard to understand why our substitutes are so attractive. Even if they don't address our deepest needs, they prop us up and for a time keep getting us the goods that give us those momentary pleasant sensations.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Come meet with Gloria, Kaye-Lee, and Marian for 20 minutes of silent meditation, followed by a shared reading from Tracy Cochran's Presence. This week, we continue reading the "Spinning Straw" chapter. There is no need to be familiar with the book, and everyone is welcome.
We can only imagine how the poor miller felt after he spoke. He had betrayed what he most deeply loved and understood to be true. He loved his work and he loved his daughter.
– Tracy Cochran
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi to read an excerpt from a talk given by the beloved teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. In this talk, Thich gives us four mantras we can use. These mantras offer us a way to relate to our life, our suffering, and the suffering of others. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and everyone is welcome.
The greatest gift we can give to others is our true presence.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
Training ourselves with the skills of awareness, connection, insight, and purpose will open up entirely new ways of being–and doing. This week, join Ken to continue as we move from the skills of awareness to those of connection. Our session will begin with sitting and walking meditation, and everyone is welcome.
We can't always control the external circumstances of our lives, but we can work on how we respond.
– Davidson & Dahl
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Daniel to read an article by Shoukei Matsumoto titled "The Mindfulness of Tidying Up." How can cleaning up be about more than just duty? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
Our surroundings connect us with who we are. Messy surroundings can scatter our minds and pull us away from the present. Grounding ourselves in the here and now means bringing harmony both to us and to the space around us.
– Shoukei Matsumoto
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie as we continue with a series of introductions to teachers in the mindfulness/climate space. Joanna Macy is one of the great activists and spiritual teachers of our era. In one of her videos, she offers a hopeful message: If we can free ourselves from the delusions and dependencies bred by the “industrial growth society,” something wonderful can happen. 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.
If we manage to steer clear of panic, we may well find, at last, the wild power of our creativity and solidarity.
– Joanna Macy
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Lauren as we continue reading the "Influence and Insignificance" chapter from 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 explore our desire to be influential in various ways and our disappointment at finding ourselves insignificant. What lies beneath that, and how can we move towards more presence around it? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
Most of us long for recognition from others in one form or another. And if we happen to get some recognition or renown, we ought to remember that, just like any other experience, being in the spotlight is an experience bound by impermanence. It can't and won't last.
– Ethan Nichtern
It is Mother's Day as I write this and the garden, where the mother of this household is diligently tending to the rhubarb, dahlias, garlic, and green onions, is cool but sunny. The plants that flourish here this morning are the result of years of her care and attention, amplified by the generosity of friends, family, and neighbours. Like all gardens, this one is a marvel of interconnectedness 🌱
We sometimes refer to meditation as a process of cultivation: patience, compassion, mindfulness. Like a garden, seeds and soil are necessary but not enough, and also like a garden, there be weeds! As Thich Nhat Hanh writes:
These seeds of love, happiness, compassion, fear, hatred, anxiety...are in every one of us.
Each of us has our unique amalgam of seeds and soil, a distinct patch that we inherited, collected, and exercised into existence. In meditation, we have the opportunity not only to see what's happening in this oddly unfamiliar garden, but also to choose what to encourage and what to simply acknowledge.
One way to approach this is through a process of noticing and appreciating. When you notice a feeling of kindness, for example, pause to appreciate it. Each time you do this, you cultivate the seed of kindness. Conversely, if you recognize a feeling of envy, acknowledge its presence without getting (too) entangled. In that way, you're gently "weeding out" the seed of envy. This kind of moment-to-moment nurturing can eventually bring about astonishing change, the way tulips seem to happen all at once on a sunny day in May.
If the garden below my window is the coming together and blossoming of countless causes and conditions, so too our families, neighbourhoods, and cities. They emerge from our hearts and minds, concerns and yearnings. They're born of the seeds we nurture, individually and collectively. Obviously, we're not all mothers, but if nurture is the hallmark (couldn't resist 😉 ) of mothering, then we do share that capacity. Why not offer it to ourselves and those around us? Maybe don't expect flowers and brunch, though.
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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
