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All online sessions include a 20-minute silent meditation. New to meditation? Instruction is available.
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Monday, Apr 29 – The Four Immeasurables

Please join Brenda, Gordon, Jim, and Sharon for 20 minutes of silent meditation followed by our continuing discussion of Sharon Salzberg's book Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. This week we complete the book, with thoughts on the practice of morality and the four immeasurables (lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity). All are welcome, no need to have the book.

As we embrace the truth, we are embraced by it, and that is our protection. We find our place of refuge by creating the conditions for it ourselves.
— Sharon Salzberg

Tuesday, Apr 30 – The Colorings of Consciousness

Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET

Join Kaye-Lee after meditation for more of Jack Kornfield's book, The Wise Heart. This week, we'll continue to read and discuss "The Colorings of Consciousness". How can getting a better handle on our states of mind lead us to more peace? Everyone is welcome and there's no need to be familiar with the book.

Consciousness is colored by the states that visit it.
― The Buddha

Wednesday, May 1 – Growing Through Difficulty

Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET

Join Adam, Lauren, Sandi, and Jessica after meditation to read and discuss a section from Mark Nepo's book, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen. This week's reading explores how difficult times may offer our greatest opportunities for growth. There's no need to be familiar with the book, and everyone is welcome.

The truth is that life will break us and burn us at some point on the journey. This is not pessimistic or cynical but descriptive of the geography of being alive. It is part of how we are transformed by the journey.
― Mark Nepo

Thursday, May 2 – Soften, Soothe, Allow

Click here to visit our Meetup
IN-PERSON – OWEN SOUND

Join Ken on Thursday for sitting and walking meditation, and then to explore a practice by Kristen Neff to work with difficult emotions. When we experience a difficult emotion, we may run from it, overreact to it, or numb ourselves to avoid experiencing it. Neff points the way to a kinder and more healthy way to engage challenging emotions.

Remember that we’re all imperfect, that life is imperfect. And that if we can open to that, we can be happy and peaceful, even in the face of suffering.
— Kristen Neff

Friday, May 3 – The Golden Buddha Within You

Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET

Join Debbie for meditation on Friday, followed by a reading and discussion of "Uncover the Golden Buddha Within You", a Lion's Roar article by Tara Brach. We all do things we aren't proud of. How can we see through our fear and habits to the goodness at our core?

Even though the gold of your true nature can get buried beneath fear, uncertainty, and confusion, the more you trust this loving presence as the truth of who you are, the more fully you will call it forth in yourself, and in all those you touch.
― Tara Brach

Sunday, May 5 – Relating with Transitions

Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET

Join Debbie on Sunday for meditation, and then to read and discuss a section from the book Right Here With You. We all go through transitions and endings–relationships, jobs, friendships, even the deaths of those we love. How can we bring our awareness and compassion to transition so we aren't pulled along only by fear, confusion, and habit?

Endings are painful, filled with uncertainty and groundlessness, but they also provide opportunity
— Unknown

Feeling the Heat

At the beginning of the 2019 movie Ad Astra, set in the near future, Roy McBride (played by Brad Pitt) accidentally falls from the top of a towering earth antenna back into the atmosphere, and with the help of a parachute, all the way to earth. We then learn that McBride is unflappable to the extreme, so much so that his heart rate has never risen above 80 beats per minute during his time in service, including the fall from space.

How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.
— Paulo Coelho

As the film progresses, we discover that McBride is unable to sustain intimate relationships and his composure masks a deep rage at being abandoned by his father. Only when he's forced to confront these bottled-up emotions does he become vulnerable enough to rekindle a lost love.

The movie brings to mind a recent bon mot: people don't change when they see the light, they change when they feel the heat. We feel that heat most keenly in our embodied emotional world. I can relate to McBride; a few key breakthroughs of mine came on the heels of emotional turmoil. I desperately wanted to compartmentalize and avoid those eruptions, but it was only when I had no choice but to face the heat that growth became possible.

Now, I'm not recommending we dive headlong into every deep, dark emotional well. But mindfulness is about more than the mind. It encompasses our entire experience, including what's painful. By mindfully and skillfully facing our emotionally charged terrain*, we benefit ourselves and others through an enlivened capacity for wisdom and compassion.

* Falling from space not required.

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger.

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Ken & the Community Meditation Team

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