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.
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.
NOTE
For all the sessions listed below:
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.
The goal is to connect to a world outside of us, to lose the obsessive self-focus of self-exploration and, simply, explore.
― Julia Cameron
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'll finish chapter 6, Radical Acceptance of Desire: Awakening to the Source of Longing. Everyone is welcome, and there's no need to have or be familiar with the book.
When we bring Radical Acceptance to the enormity of desire, allowing it to be as it is, neither resisting it nor grasping after it, the light of our awareness dissolves the wanting self into its source. We find that we are naturally and entirely in love.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Kaye-Lee, Marian, and Gloria facilitate a shared reading of Norman Fischer's The World Could be Different: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path. Fischer's work has already sparked our discussion! Join us as we continue this exploration.
Spiritual practice is one of the key sites of imagination.
– Norman Fischer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:45 AM ET
NEW DAYTIME SESSION! ONLINE
Please join Sandi and Darina as we launch a new daytime session. We're excited to bring you readings from Pema Chodron's brand new book, Another Kind of Freedom. In it, Pema looks at the causes of happiness. She writes that "how we work internally with what’s unfolding in our lives" is more important than fixing outer circumstances. Our happiness depends on what we do with our reactions; our mind and emotions.
Only when we stay present with what’s happening does the space open up for us to relax and appreciate ourselves and our world.
– Pema Chodron
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Lauren, Adam, and Sandi to watch and discuss an excerpt from a video with Tara Brach. In this video, Brach discusses imagination and its importance to our current sociological crisis. Brach argues that in dark times, imagination is not a retreat from reality but something that arises directly from it.
The very suffering gives rise to something — a deeper, more fresh intelligence, a caring, and an imagination.
– Tara Brach
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
While it's easy to confuse empathy and compassion, brain imaging scans show that they are quite different. When we cultivate compassion, not only are we moved to help another person, but our capacity to regulate ourselves is increased. Join Ken as we continue exploring and practicing connection.
[The] compassionate response activates a completely different network in your brain, what we call the care network...Unlike empathic distress, these feelings aren't overwhelming or depleting but uplifting and energizing.
– Davidson & Dahl
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Hazel as she introduces the work of mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn. We will look at select readings from his book, Coming to Our Senses, and watch a video.
Coming to our senses really means waking up to what is. I am speaking of the potential for liberation arising out of the core 'paying attention' that mindfulness practice is grounded in.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join us as we watch and discuss a video conversation between Joanna Macy and Michael Dowd about making peace with the climate situation as it is.
👉 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.
When tackling issues such as climate change, the stance of gratitude is a refreshing alternative to guilt or fear as a source of motivation.
– Joanna Macy
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join us as we continue reading from Pema Chodron's "Living Beautifully". In a section titled "The Second Commitment", Pema explores the idea of committing to benefit others.
Opening the door [to others] reflects our intention to remove our armour, to take off our mask, to face our fears. It is only to the degree that we become willing to face our own feelings that we can really help others.
– Pema Chodron
One definition of the word "intend" is "to have in mind as a purpose or goal." As someone who helps people learn about mindfulness, the "have in mind" part jumps out at me. According to a 2020 study, the average person has over 6000 thoughts in a single day. Leaving out 8 hours of sleep, that's roughly 6 thoughts a minute. If we assume one intention = one thought, then bringing an intention to mind once represents 0.00016% of your daily thinking.
Despite these daunting odds, setting an intention can be a powerful act, one that could alter the course of your meditation, your day, or your entire life.
Human intention is such a powerful force that in legal terms, it's often more important than actual behaviour. That's because whatever we intend has a high probability of occurring.
– Martha Beck
Here are a few points to consider when setting an intention:
Intention can not only help you start and sustain a meditation practice; you can also set an intention to start your sitting. You might intend to be kinder to yourself, to be more patient with your father-in-law, or to be of benefit to the people you will encounter today.
One last recommendation: learning to set and maintain intentions takes practice. Don't worry if it doesn't come naturally, or if it happens in fits and starts. Maybe your intention needs some fine-tuning. Keep calm and carry on 😉
Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Nicolas Messifet 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
