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. Oline 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.
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 @ 7 PM ET
Please join Brenda, Gordon, Jim, and Sharon for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by our ongoing discussion of Pema Chödrön's Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World. Tonight, we'll read Chapter 16, "Imagine Life Without Ego." There's no need to have or be familiar with the book, and everyone is welcome. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
Our journey toward living without ego is to learn how to let go, relax, take a chance, wait and see, and never sum ourselves up.
– Pema Chödrön
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Please join Gloria, Kaye Lee, Marian, and Caitlin as we continue exploring We Were Made for These Times, a book by Kaira Jewel Lingo. We'll carry on with Chapter 7, "Calmly Facing the Eight Worldly Winds." Our focus will be on the four pairs of opposites, those things we both hope for and fear. There's no need to have read the book, and everyone is welcome. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
The eight worldly dharmas are like the wind: sometimes gentle, sometimes stormy. A practitioner trains to remain stable, like a mountain, even when the winds of praise or blame blow strongly.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Click here for directions
IN-PERSON – MISSISSAUGA
In what ways does our resistance to the unknown or our clinging to control create suffering in daily life? Join Tammy for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by an ongoing exploration of Pema Chodron's book Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change. We'll begin with 20 minutes of meditation, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
The invitation is to stop running from the unknown and to stop trying to control the uncontrollable.
– Pema Chodron
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Sandi, Lauren, Adam, and Stephanie to read and discuss Mark Nepo's book You Don't Have To Do It Alone. The provocative title of the "The Work of Friendship" chapter is a contemplation in and of itself. What would that work look like? We'll begin with 20 minutes of meditation, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
What matters is showing up when things are soft and torn. Each time we're there for each other, we stitch another thread that holds the Universe together.
– Mark Nepo
Click here to visit our Meetup
IN-PERSON – OWEN SOUND
Think of the most pleasant meditation session you've had recently, one where you felt more peaceful and at ease than usual. How wonderful. Now, drop it! Completely let go of that experience. Join Ken to read and discuss "Letting Go of Spiritual Experience" by Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche. Our session will include 35 minutes of sitting and walking meditation.
Each experience has to be let go of, or the mind will simply close down in its fixation on that experience, leaving little or no room for new experiences to arise.
— Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
How can we prioritize peace of mind now, instead of always trying to set it up for some future time? Please join Debbie as we read and discuss the "How to Start from Sanity" chapter in Oliver Burkeman's book, Meditations for Mortals. There's no need to be familiar with the book, and the session is open to all. We'll begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
...it appears to be a fundamental rule that if you treat sanity as a state you have to reach by engaging in all manner of preparations, or getting other things out of the way first, then the main effect will be to reinforce the sense of sanity as something that's out of reach.
– Oliver Burkeman
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
This week, after 20 minutes of silent meditation, join Debbie to read and discuss an article titled "Ecological Compassion." How can we approach the world, and ourselves, with compassion in the face of ecological destruction?
Friday EcoDharma sessions are for those experiencing anxiety or grief about environmental issues. The aim is to bring mindfulness and Buddhist practices to our distress, and to build community.
It is only when our aliveness is resonant with and attuned to all beings—human, nonhuman, and even non-sentient beings—that our compassion becomes truly all-sided and ecological. We practice it with what is right before our eyes.
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
When we perceive something, who is doing the perceiving? Join Debbie this Sunday to dive into "The Conscious Awareness" chapter of Michael Singer's book Living Untethered Together. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation. There's no need to be familiar with the book.
We are slowly peeling back the onion to see what it's like to be you.
– Michael Singer
What is your opinion of how good or bad, clever or foolish, content or lacking, you are right now? How do you feel about yourself? I’ve been contemplating the ever-changing, often conflicting, bundle of thoughts and emotions we cart around. It’s a peculiar feature of being human, this embodied self-image. As far as we know, we’re the only creature that has it. Either that, or we’re so busy projecting ourselves onto the more-than-human world that we fail to notice 👀
Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.
— Elizabeth Gilbert
Emotions naturally ebb and flow, although our habitual patterns of thought readily amplify and prolong them. Our body also plays a role in the shifting sands of emotion and thought–refracting, reflecting, concentrating.
An image springs to mind: the tightly clenched fist. Our self-image is frequently like that. Just as it takes a lot of energy to maintain a fist, so too to maintain our fixed ideas and beliefs. Like that fist, nothing–not joy, not love, not peace–can get in or out.
Let’s borrow from Byron Katie’s method of working with difficult thoughts, called The Work, to engage with our more curmudgeonly opinions. First, identify a reasonably mild but decidedly negative self-opinion you’re holding. Got it? Great. Now explore the following questions, slowly and deeply. You’ll find it helpful to write down each question, and your responses.
This process drags our thinking into the light, challenges its veracity, and calls out the relationship between questionable, negative thoughts and the painful emotions they engender. With practice, Katie’s questions help you relax the clenched fist of opinion so you can "recognize yourself as a friend" once again.
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Image by Alexandra Haynak 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
