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.
NOTE
For all the sessions listed below:
Click here to join on Zoom @ 5 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Kaye-Lee to explore what happens when we slow down and move toward the creative with mindful awareness and intention.
There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.
― Edward de Bono
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 Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach. This week, we continue discussing Chapter 9, "The RAIN of Compassion: an Applied Meditation for Healing and Freedom".
Our emotions, even afflictive ones like fear and anger, have the potential to transmute into spiritual medicine.
– Tara Brach
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Consider yourself invited to join Marian, Gloria, and Kaye-Lee as we delve further into Norman Fischer's book, The World Could Be Otherwise. This week, we'll continue exploring Chapter 2, "The Perfection of Generosity".
Everything is always the way it is, flowing and perfect even when it seems painful.
– Norman Fischer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:45 AM ET
NEW DAYTIME SESSION! ONLINE
Please join Sandi and Darina for our daytime session, in which we're currently exploring Pema Chodron's book, Another Kind of Freedom. In it, Chodron explores the six "styles of imprisonment", the first of which she calls "The Cosmic Joke". This week, we continue to look at the ego as a five-step process: how quickly we jump from openness to our interpretations of 'for/against', 'like/dislike', and then our storylines about that.
Because we have such a deep-seated habit of grabbing on and holding tight, we miss the natural openness that’s always present.
– Pema Chodron
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Join Sandi, Lauren, and Adam as we read Pema Chodron's book, "Practicing Peace in Times of War". In this section, we explore the relationship between insecurity and aggression. Try as we might to avoid feeling discomfort, it is part of life. Pema encourages us to develop an appetite for groundlessness in order to burn up the seeds of aggression.
We need to get curious about it and be willing to pause and hang out for a while in that space of insecurity.
– Pema Chodron
OWEN SOUND, IN PERSON
This week, join Ken to explore an article by Zen teacher Norman Fischer, titled "Life is Tough. Here Are Six Ways to Deal With It". Fischer offers six ways to approach our day-to-day that create what he calls "the smoothest possible approach to happiness".
We think we have to hold on to what we have, but our very holding on causes us to lose what we have.
― Norman Fischer
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie as we explore the work of teacher Adam Lobel. In a podcast interview by Stephanie Romero, Adam talks about "The Ripple Effect". This is an introduction to Lobel's work, who has been Debbie McCubbin's main mentor in her practice life.
In this thought-provoking episode, Stephanie Romero sits down with longtime meditation teacher, scholar, environmental activist, and community leader Adam Lobel to explore what it means to live, lead, and practice amidst profound personal and societal change.
– Stephanie Romero podcast
Click here to join on Zoom @ 7 PM ET
ECODHARMA
Join Debbie in watching a panel explore how we can use storytelling to find a way out of the climate crisis. How does fiction impact our relationship with the climate crisis?
👉 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.
Can different modes of storytelling, and the way we relate to them, help us find a way out of the crisis? And are creative approaches to non-fiction having a greater impact?
– Source material
Click here to join on Zoom @ 10:15 AM ET
ONLINE
Please join Debbie and Darina to continue with Ethan Nichtern's book Confidence. As part of a series about the "Eight Worldly Winds" (praise/blame, success/failure, pain/pleasure, and fame/insignificance), we'll continue into "The Four Powers of Confidence", starting with "The Power of Compassion".
You may be sick of talking about compassion. Many of us suffer from some level of compassion fatigue, so discussing the power of compassion related to building our confidence can be deflating, rather than inspiring.
– Ethan Nichtern
Silence Between Breaths, a poem by Stephen Levine:
There is a silence between breaths
when the heart becomes a sacred flame
and the belly uncoils which reminds me
how remarkable it is to wake
beside you another day.Between deaths we dreamed together
between breaths, in that stillness,
which has joined us ever since.In that first breath
we step onto the dance floor,
and waltz unnoticed through the void.
The sacred everywhere we turn
and turn again, as form so generously dissolves
and only the Beloved remains.In this moment which lasts a lifetime
there is nowhere to stand
where you are not beside me
where you do not accompany me within.
--
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Ken, Sandi, and the Community Meditation Team
Photo by Alaric Duan 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
