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.
NOTE
For all the sessions listed below:
Click here to join on Zoom @ 5 PM ET
ONLINE
Join Kaye-Lee on Monday for a contemplative journey into the elements of mindful creativity, with its limitless forms of expression. Bring a pen and some paper, and we'll explore through play. Everyone is welcome.
Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it.
– Salvador Dali
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Brenda, Jim, and Gordon for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by a reading and discussion of Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha. This week, we continue reading and discussing Chapter 11, "Awakening the Heart of Lovingkindness".
By simply offering care, our care begins to wake up.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Kaye-Lee, Gloria, and Marian to continue exploring Norman Fischer's book, The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path. We continue to read Chapter 3, "The Perfection of Ethical Conduct". Everyone is welcome.
Regret and remorse keep me honest and lead to repentance
– Norman Fischer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:45 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Sandi, Darina, and Anita for our daytime exploration of Pema Chodron's book, Another Kind of Freedom. This week, we'll look at the 5th section of meditation: the way of the Buddha. We'll explore a mindful awareness practice where we sit with our eyes open. In this approach, distractions are not considered distractions.
The vipashyana perspective is a panoramic situation in which you can come and go freely, and your relationship with the world is open.
– Pema Chodron
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Join Lauren, Sandi, and Adam in exploring Francis Weller's beautiful book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow. We continue with the "first gate of grief", one that offers connection to deeper being. It also offers a way to notice the body calling us back to deeper ground, to the very roots of life.
One day I said to him, 'I’m concerned that you are going to waste a perfectly good heart attack...You have turned your back on many things—love, your friendships, and your body—and your heart is filled with grief...Listen!”
– Francis Weller
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
Join Ken this week to carry on reading the "Hidden Reefs" chapter of Rob Nairn's Diamond Mind book. What role do expectations play in meditation practice? In our lives? Everyone is welcome.
NOTE: Harmony Centre has a new door lock, and we can't make sure it stays open, so please use the doorbell to the right of the door.
Whatever happens has a vividness and interest of its own because we are not judging it against any criteria.
― Rob Nairn
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Hazel as we explore Tara Brach's RAIN practice, which consists of four parts: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture.
When we feel unworthy, we are in a trance that causes tremendous
suffering.
― Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie to read and discuss the teachings from Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis by David Loy. We'll be exploring the intersection of Buddhist teachings and climate change.
👉 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.
Probably the most important teaching of Buddhism in relationship to our present situation—it’s what I would call the ecosattva path.
– David Loy
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Darina as we continue reading Ethan Nichtern's book Confidence. In the chapter titled "The Power of Awareness", Nichtern explores what the experience of awareness is.
Awareness isn't any particular experience; it's a space of knowing that contains every experience we have.
– Ethan Nichtern
There's a story about the Buddha and a lute (guitar) player who was struggling with his meditation practice. The conversation went something like this:
Buddha: What happens when you tune your instrument too tightly?
Musician: The strings break.
Buddha: And what happens when you string it too loosely?
Musician: When it’s too loose, no sound comes out. The string that produces a tuneful sound is not too tight and not too loose.
Buddha: That is how to practice: not too tight and not too loose.
This applies to more than meditation, of course, and a similar idea show up in Aristotle's Golden Mean. There's even a Middle Way Society that strives to "avoid dogmatic extremes"!
In Positive Psychology, there's a practice called "Extracting Strengths from Problems", which (true to its name) encourages us to recognize and cultivate our strengths, such as curiosity, kindness, and humility. The authors of this practice, Hugo Alberts (Ph.D.) and Lucinda Poole (PsyD), are quick to point out that "strengths...can be used too much or too little". They go on to offer examples such as being overly curious about a sensitive topic or excessively humble when someone praises you.
Here's what an "Extracting Strengths" session might look like:
I think the Buddha would approve. Wait, maybe that's too optimistic. Does this even relate to meditation? Uh oh. Let's see, my underlying strength is...
😉
--
🙏
Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Paweł L.
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
