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.
Sunday November 3rd, 7–8:30 PM
We're excited to host a conversation and meditation experience with Craig Mollins, a seasoned mindfulness teacher of over 25 years who lives with Tourette syndrome. Join us on a journey to celebrate the incredible diversity of the human brain! Neurodiversity is all about recognizing and valuing the unique perspectives and experiences that make each of us who we are.
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 @ 8:30 AM ET
NEW! ONLINE
Looking for a mindful start to your day? We're launching silent group meditations from 8:30 to 8:45 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 reading of Bhante Gunaratana's book Mindfulness in Plain English. This week, we'll discuss the characteristics of mindfulness. You don't have to be familiar with the book. Everyone is welcome!
Mindfulness is nonjudgmental observation. It is that ability of the mind to observe without criticism.
– Bhante Gunaratana
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Gloria and Ryan will be hosting this Tuesday. We'll begin reading and discussing "The Ancient Unconscious" chapter of Jack Kornfield's book The Wise Heart. There's no need to be familiar with the book.
If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.
– Jack Kornfield
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Join Adam, Lauren, and Sandi to read and discuss "The Endless Search" from Mark Nepo's book, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen. The impulse to search is human and we're born with a thirst for love, truth, and meaning. What does that look like in our day-to-day? Everyone is welcome, and you don't have to be familiar with the book. We'll begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
Like fish extracting oxygen from water passed through gills, we are meant to extract that which will keep us alive, from the experience that moves daily through our hearts.
― Mark Nepo
Click here to visit our Meetup
IN-PERSON – OWEN SOUND
Join Ken this week to read and discuss sections from The Little Book by Byron Katie. Katie created a process called The Work that combines mindfulness with a specific inquiry process to expose how our thinking diverges from reality in ways that cause us pain. Our session will start with 35 minutes of sitting and walking meditation.
👉 Planning to join this session? Consider joining Meetup and RSVPing to the session. It gives people a better idea of how many are attending and helps us grow.
I am a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.
― Bryon Katie
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
NEW! ONLINE
It's often difficult to fully inhabit our bodies. Instead, we're usually caught up in our thoughts or rushing around, unaware of our physical presence. Join Debbie to explore why this happens and how can we move towards being present in the body. We'll start with 20 minutes of silent meditation and everyone is welcome. Join Debbie to explore why this happens and how can we move towards being present in the body. We'll start with 20 minutes of silent meditation and everyone is welcome.
Paying attention to sensations gets us out of our heads and into our bodies—and the world around us.
― Ed Halliwell
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Join Debbie this week to consider how can we cultivate compassion and love for ourselves and others, drawing on Tara Brach's teachings. The session will start with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
Whether we call it compassion, kindness or just love, it is an essential part of the path to a happy, fulfilling life and a better world.
― Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
Can we enter this moment exactly as we are, without trying to change or manage our internal experience?
Join Debbie in reading and discussing this possibility through Jon Bernie's book The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is. The session begins with 20 minutes of meditation.
Many of us are very hard on ourselves, and who can blame us? We live in a competitive, judgemental world.
― Jon Bernie
It's pretty much impossible to get involved with mindfulness without encountering the phrase "You are not your thoughts". The first time someone encounters it, the result is usually bafflement, rejection, or annoyance. Any of which, whether you're 25 or 65, is a reasonable reaction. Why? Because from an early age, we learn to swim in a sea of language and concepts. Good thing, too! If cooperation is the ultimate human superpower, language and concept are key components.
Now, saying that you're not your thoughts doesn't mean thinking is bad. Instead, your mind contains, but is not limited to, your thoughts. In Zen, this is sometimes expressed as "small mind" and "big mind". Small mind talks, judges, separates, and categorizes. Big mind witnesses, accepts, and unifies. In small mind, past and future dominate. In big mind, there is only now. In small mind, all things exist in opposition. In big mind, there is only wholeness.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
– William Blake
The point isn't to glorify big mind or denigrate small mind, both belong. But until we begin to notice and inhabit big mind, even a little, it's hard to relate skillfully with our thoughts. For many of us, much of the time, the mind is jammed with thinking like a highway to cottage country on a long weekend.
In my experience, we don’t make thoughts appear, they just appear. One day, I noticed that their appearance just wasn’t personal.
– Byron Katie
Meditation is a way to access big mind. Sitting still, silently, and with minimal external distractions, we become familiar with what's happening in our minds. Sooner or later, a gap emerges between the waves of thought. The figure/ground of small mind and big mind flips and a new perspective emerges. We see a thought from the outside and watch it fade away. Who is seeing? Big mind.
And so we discover, without rejecting anything, that we aren't our thoughts. As Neo memorably put it in The Matrix: Whoa.
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Ken & the Community Meditation Team
Image by Sewupari Studio 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
