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.
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
Please join Brenda, Gordon, Jim, and Sharon to continue reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. Tonight, we'll be discussing how mindfulness can help us comprehend the roots of conflict–and illuminate paths to reconciliation.
Real efforts for reconciliation arise when we see with the eyes of compassion, and that ability comes when we see clearly the nature of interbeing and interpenetration of all beings.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
On Tuesday, tune in to continue unearthing the wisdom Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman's book Love Your Enemies with Bob Hollett. There's no need to be familiar with the book.
Love is the bridge between you and everything..
– Rumi
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
In this week's session, we'll delve into the "Entanglements" Willa Blythe Baker describes in her book The Wakeful Body. Baker leads us through an exploration and guided practice of our push-and-pull patterns. Simply noticing a pattern can loosen its grip on us and create the space to engage with it. Join Jessica Fenbow for this sharing reading and conversation. You don't have to be familiar with the book.
Entanglement happens before we make a choice. It leads to a habitual tendency to micromanage our experience.
- Willa Blythe Baker
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
This Friday evening, join Debbie McCubbin to continue exploring our urge to talk. Can we be aware of what motivates us to speak? How might we cultivate a greater awareness?
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.
― Kahlil Gibran
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
Join Debbie McCubbin on Sunday to explore lovingkindess, also known as metta. How can we develop or deepen this quality of warmth, care, and goodwill that extends beyond personal preferences or boundaries?
Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world.
– Sharon Salzberg
This is an edited version of an article originally posted on March 7, 2022.
Do you ever find yourself overwhelmed by the number of things you're trying to accomplish? I do. I say "trying to accomplish" because it typically happens when I'm striving to make progress on multiple fronts at once (the so-called multitasking).
There's a difference between tasks that require thought and those that are more cut-and-dried or mechanical. For example, deciding on a career change versus taking out the recycling. We can juggle quite a few mechanical chores, for example:
None of these require any deep thought. All can be done in any order, and switching from one to the other–while maybe not ideal–isn't terribly disruptive. Thinking tasks are a different matter. To consider a decision or idea in any depth we have to sustain our attention on it. Our first take might be shallow, uninformed, or lacking in context; the only way to find out is stay with it and go deeper.
When we treat thinking tasks as if they were mechanical, we get into trouble. Why? Because the very act of switching undermines both our capacity for sustained thought and our ability to switch! That's right: the more we multitask, the worse we get at it.
Multitasking, in short, is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think.
- William Deresiewicz
The next time your to-do list leaves you frazzled and unfocused, try this:
Recognizing which tasks require thought and giving them appropriate space won't transform your to-do list into meditation retreat 😉 It might, however, make you calmer, happier, and more productive.
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🙏
Ken & the Community Meditation Team
We started this meditation network to help you bring more clarity, balance, caring and joy to your life and your community.
We often get caught up in our own reactions and forget the vulnerability of the person in front of us.
― Sharon Salzberg
