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
This Monday, join Kaye-Lee to continue delving into 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!
Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
― Pablo Picasso
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'll be continuing Chapter 5 with the section "Traumatic Fear: Dissociating from Our Bodies." Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to have or be familiar with the book.
No matter how deeply we have been wounded, when we listen to the inner voice that calls us back to our bodies, back to wholeness, we begin our journey.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Please join Kaye-Lee, Marian, and Gloria for 20 minutes of silent meditation. Afterward, we'll continue to read Seeking Verity, a chapter in Tracy Chapman's Presence: The Art of Being at Home in Yourself.
. There is no need to be familiar with the book. All are welcome.
I slowly came to accept that the drama of being a self and being no self plays out over and over again with no end.
– Tracy Cochran
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi as we continue reading Lama Tasha Schumann's article titled "The Clarity Inside Your Anger." After last week's fruitful session, we'll dive deeper into "anger" by noticing our attention with curiosity and space. We may notice a felt sense of the body at the centre of attention, yet our attention is not the same as the body. This can be very helpful when our body is flooded with strong feelings, like anger. Can we bring spaciousness to this practice? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
On a personal level, clarified anger can show us where we’ve been silencing ourselves, where resentment has been quietly accumulating, where we’ve been saying ‘it’s fine’ when it isn’t.
– Lama Tasha Schumann
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
How does mindfulness get developed? What does it lead to as we develop it? Join Ken to explore the cycle of mindfulness and how our meditation practice, over time, alleviates our suffering. Our session will begin with sitting and walking meditation, and everyone is welcome.
We have this wonderful free feeling because we have experienced the nature of bondage, which is habitual, and now we have stepped free.
– Rob Nairn
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Daniel to read the article "The Body Is Already Mindful" by Willa Blythe Baker. In it, she skillfully explores meditating with the natural mindfulness of the body. Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation.
Somatic mindfulness is informed by one very simple observation: the mind is distracted, but the body is not. The body is not thinking or ruminating. It is just feeling and being, present, aware, and vibrant. In other words: the body is already mindful.
– Willa Blythe Baker
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie to read and discuss Hospicing Modernity, by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. In "Faster than Thought," we can explore what we mean by modernity and why it is decaying. Looking at how the climate crisis, the idea of 'constant progress', and other contributors to the polycrisis are embedded in our worldviews. 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.
Modernity conditions us to believe that in order to change reality or our ways of being, we first need to imagine what this change looks like, and then make a plan and act to achieve that goal. That is why many people ask me the question: if not modernity, then what? I usually say that this is a logical question -- within modernity's logic. I warn people who start with that question that they will not like my answer, which is: we will only be able to imagine something genuinely different if we first become suspicious of what we desire and are able to imagine within modernity.
– Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Lauren as we continue reading the "Praise and Blame" chapter from Ethan Nichtern's book Confidence. How can we relate mindfully when we are being criticized–and complimented? Our session will begin with 20 minutes of silent meditation, and there's no need to be familiar with the book.
The irony of feedback is that while we long to be known by others, it's also fundamentally uncomfortable to be 'seen'.
– Ethan Nichtern
You may recall that back in January, I wrote about Rob Nairn's description of the cycle of thought (click here for that article.) Two key points were a) at what point do we notice that a thought is arising, and b) what happens when we identify with that thought. Let's call this the "A" phase.
There is a "B" phase, however, and it looks like this:
In this "B" phase, 1our mindfulness has developed sufficiently that we're able to notice a thought arising earlier in the process–possibly even at Step 1 above, the initial arising of a thought. Typically, though, the breakthrough begins in Step 3. We recognize the urge to identify with the thought–but we don't. The I-am-my-thoughts cycle has been interrupted. This is a Very Big Deal! The thought floats away, without the charge of identification or the consequent clinging and suffering. Nairn puts it this way:
We start experiencing a wonderful sense of resilience because inner states no longer matter...what in the Vajrayana tradition is called "one taste"...Our mind is just so free, vibrant, vivid, and unembroiled that it is impartial to whatever arises..."
This deceptively simple process of sitting, placing our attention on the breath, noticing the mind has wandered, and gently returning, belies its transformative power. With each cycle, bit by bit, our mindfulness gets stronger. Over time, noticing happens earlier and earlier in the process. Eventually, we see the thought clearly enough to unhook from it and taste freedom. Wondrous! Amazing! The next thought arises...
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP 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
