Shambhala Meditation Centre of Toronto
670 Bloor St W Suite 300 M6G 1L2 Toronto, ON, Canada

Discovering basic goodness, gentleness and appreciation. (There’s still time to register for Feel Human Again which begins tonight at 7 pm and continues through Saturday! Join us and we’ll discover together!)

We're excited to have Holly Gayley leading a Saturday Afternoon Workshop! Join us!! More info on website calendar at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=465093

Look what’s coming up online this week! Join us!! More info on Website Calendar through link in comments! #meditation #shambhalatraining #feelhumanagain #yeshetsogyal #refugerecovery #comfortablewithuncertainty #pemachodron #socialjustice #socialmeditation

Love includes accepting others and being noble, reasonable, openhearted, resourceful, and free of possessiveness. With love, you are totally gentle, utterly kind, thorough, wise, fearless, and willing to commit yourself to any situation. You are warriorlike, industrious, tireless, and never take time off for yourself. When you need to give your help to others, you are always willing to do so. I think that covers the Buddhist version of the word love. Love is very noble, elegant, beautiful, resourceful, and utterly visionary. It is the starting point or foundation of the mahayana. - Chogyam Trungpa The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion: The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, Volume Two

Only by learning to fully embrace all aspects of ourselves will we learn to fully embrace others. -Pema Chödrön, Welcoming the Unwelcome Wholehearted Living in Brokenhearted World

Lots of online goodness this week! Join us!!

Join us online this week!

#Compassion is our inherent essence expressed, inseparable from #awareness.

Join Nick online tomorrow for Ecology of the Heart! Registration at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=462102

Although several Buddhist and Shambhala teachers encourage us to work with the traditions and lineages we were born into, many of us feel a dissonance between our spiritual path and our family or community of origin. While this discrepancy can deeply affect our lives, it may not be obvious how to link generational legacies with the energy and teachings of unconditional goodness. In this contemplative workshop, we will lightly touch the terrain of our ancestral inheritances f...rom the ground of wakefulness, and explore bridging these realms of our experience. Through talks, readings, guided meditations and other exercises, we will create a welcoming environment for the possibility of finding ancestral support, insight, and a nourishing and deepening of our practice. More info and registration at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=461053 See more

What truly heals is gratitude and tenderness. -Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice for Difficult Times.

Join us tonight?! More info at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=445682

Look what’s coming up this week! Hope you can join us! More info at https://toronto.shambhala.org/programs/monthly-calendar/

If we close down to our unpleasant feelings without awareness or curiosity, if we always mask ourselves or try to make our vulnerability go away, out of that space come addictions of all kinds. Out of that space come aggression, striking out, violence against othersall the ugly things. On the other hand, if we can go beyond blame and other escapes and just feel the bleeding, raw meat quality of our vulnerability, we can enter a space where the best part of us comes out. Our bravery, our kindness, our ability to care about and reach out to othersall our best human qualitiescome out of that space. - Pema Chödrön in Welcoming the Unwelcome Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World.

We are happy to welcome Meditation Teacher and former #WeeklyDharmaGathering Team Member Adriana DiFazio (@adrianadifazio) next week. Join the talk live at 7pm ...EDT or catch the recording anytime after. *Link in Bio* Discounts, Free Trial, and Subscription discounts available. See link in bio. Talk description: "In the wake of Black Lives Matter, devastating forest fires, and the current Presidential election, there's no shortage of needed activism. What happens though when the grief, pain, and suffering of the world feels frankly like too much to take on? Do we recede and numb out or find our own skillful means to engage the work of moving towards love and justice? Drawing upon Buddhist teachings on anger and wrathful compassion, the work of Buddhist scholar and deep ecologist Joanna Macy, and the six paramitas, we'll learn the wisdom behind showing up and acting when it's needed most and how to hold each other in communal care to avoid activist burnout. Teacher Bio: Adriana DiFazio (she/her) is a New York-based meditation teacher, event producer, and entrepreneur. She started meditating as a student at Barnard College in 2012 within the Shambhala Buddhist tradition and helped found Exubrancy, a national office wellness company, between 2015-2018. She is the former assistant to and under mentorship of Tibetan Buddhist teachers Dr. Shanté Paradigm Smalls, Ethan Nichtern, and David Perrin. She is Assistant Faculty to Ethan Nichtern’s Yearlong Buddhist Studies, an organizer for Dharma Vote, a political volunteer group for meditation practitioners, and co-facilitator for the Mixed Race Meditation Group. Adriana’s work focuses on applied Buddhist ethics, deep ecology, and activism dismantling oppression across species. Adriana’s training includes MNDFL’s 300-Hour Meditation Teacher Training Program in 2016 and the Mukpo Institute, a three month meditation retreat program, in 2018. Adriana is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity in Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement at Union Theological Seminary.

This online course will introduce the practice, aesthetics and insights of Contemplative Haiku. Haiku is a brief "poetic" expression of ordinary contemplative insight. It is both a practice and expression of profound ordinary contemplative realization. More info and registration at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=462064

Join us this Saturday! Bringing Shambhala or Buddhist practice into the real world or into relationship with our family of origin can seem daunting at times. Join Ellen Korman Mains for a talk and discussion of the Shambhala teachings that inspired her to explore her familys Holocaust history and which came further alive during her journeys to Poland. Info and Registration https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=460789

When eye, heart and world are in the same place at the same time your seeing is clear and intimate and your images are strong and vivid. These three Monday evening, online workshops introduce the practice of contemplative photography. The course includes instruction, teaching, assignments and image reviews. More info and registration at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=461429

Join us online this week! More info at https://toronto.shambhala.org/programs/monthly-calendar/

Weve added an online option for tomorrows Harvest of Peace celebration! If you do plan to attend in person, youll need to bring a mask and also pre-register to ensure we dont exceed the maximum gathering size under new social distancing regulations. Info and registration at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=459975

The process of learning spontaneously from our life situation seems to be the starting point. - Chogyam Trungpa

Meditation instructions. #meditation #meditationinstruction #tilopa #naropa #justbe #relax #rest #letgo

Join us! More info at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=461369 *Note: If youre planning to attend social meditation, please plan to sit with us from 7-7:30 too. If you just want to sit and dont want to stay for social meditation, thats okay! Looking forward to see you!

Along with many other wisdom traditions, Buddhist teachings have pointed for millennia to our deep connection and interdependence with everything in the biosphere. Having arrived at this critical moment together, how can we rise to the challenges before us without burning out or falling into eco-anxiety and depression? There will be an opportunity to learn and practice sitting and social meditation, to ask questions, discuss together and engage in experiential exercises that ...will help you connect the appreciation of outer ecology with the innate tenderness of the heart. Everyone is welcome to attend this online gathering; no previous experience is required! Register at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=462102

Bringing Shambhala or Buddhist practice into the real world or into relationship with our family of origin can seem daunting at times. Join Ellen Korman Mains on Saturday September 26, for a talk and discussion of the Shambhala teachings that inspired her to explore her familys Holocaust history and which came further alive during her journeys to Poland. More info and registration at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=460789

Harvest of Peace often includes a celebration of generosity, such as local fundraising campaigns. This year, we encourage members to make donations to your local food bank, or the Daily Bread Food Bank of Toronto, to help with addressing the food insecurity that so many are facing. There has been a 200% increase in people accessing food banks in Toronto during this pandemic, and it would be wonderful if we could show our support as a community. Thank-you so much for anything you are able to offer! (Please note your donation in the google doc on the website calendar - no name required - so that we can keep track of our donations!) More info, location etc at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=459975

Whenever we let go of holding on to ourselves and look at the world around us, whenever we connect with sorrow, whenever we connect with joy, whenever we drop our resentment and complaint, in those moments bodhichitta is here. -Pema Chödrön, in When Things Fall Apart

Please join us for the annual Harvest of Peace Celebration on Saturday, September 19 at the Dufferin Grove Park in Toronto, from 2-5 pm. Harvest of Peace is a traditional celebration to appreciate abundance and the change of seasons. More info on website!

For new and experienced meditators! When we experience fear and anxiety we may find ourselves shutting down or being resentful. Our desire to run away, to deaden, or to entertain ourselves may seem like our only means of escape. Meditation is an opportunity to soften and see more clearly, to not be carried away by hope and fear. We begin to see how often our desire is to run and hide and we begin to develop a genuine friendliness towards ourselves. Register on the website at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=459972

Every single moment is precious. (From the book Awakening Loving-Kindness by Pema Chödrön)

Amazing talk being given at the Boston Shambhala Centre: https://boston.shambhala.org/program-details/ If you can't make it you can register to receive a recording!

"When life is uncomfortable, when we're highly agitated and don't know where to turn, that's the most difficult time to stay present. But that's also the time when doing so can be the most rewarding. It's a challenge to practice staying present when we're despondent or distressed or overwhelmed, when our backs are against the wall. But right then, when we're in a tight spot, we have the ideal situation for practice. We can do something radical: accept suffering as part of our home ground, part of our enlightened mandala, and relate to it straightforwardly. We don't awaken in some paradise where the circumstances are made to order. We awaken in the charnel ground." -Pema Chödrön, from her book Living Beautifully With Uncertainty and Change

If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and well find that more areas of our lives are workable. As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for otherswhat and whom we can work with, and howbecomes wider. - Pema Chödrön, from her book When Things Fall Apart

Join us this week!

The process of learning to wake up takes time and painful measures of all kinds. The learning process is not an easy matter. It is not easy, because we do not want to surrender our basic security. The teachings of Buddhism are not a source of security, such as the freedom of nirvana or something of that nature. The teachings do not present another form of security at all, but bring the absence of any kind of security. Enlightenment is the complete absence of any kind of promises. - Chögyam Trungpa

Join us next weekend for Warrior in the World! In this weekend workshop, we work in a deliberate way. We make an effort to bring the mindfulness and awareness cultivated during our meditation practice into all aspects of our daily life. When we become awake to our sense perceptions, we can venture into the world with confidence and a vulnerability that is fearless, gentle, and alive. More info and registration at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=454188

Join us online this week! And note our upcoming at-home retreat!! More info and registration at link in comments.

Trust in your heart, trust yourself.

Join us online this Saturday! Everyone welcome, whether youve never practiced before, want a refresher, and/or just to be in community and practice together! More info and registration through link in comments!

Every time we practice holding the rawness of vulnerability in our heart, we gain a little insight into how things really are. We experience directly how nothing ever stays the same, even for a moment. We cant make anything stand still, even if we try. What we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think about is constantly changing. Even our heaviest, most unpleasant emotions have no solidity to them. - Pema Chödrön, in Welcoming the Unwelcome Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World

Join us this week! More info at link in comments!

Join us Saturday morning for a program on Conquering Fear in the Dark Age. Learn more and register at link in comments.

Fear is always a force in our lives, but it is especially powerful during this time. The coronavirus pandemic puts all our lives at risk. Society and our environment seem to be crumbling. Many of us are also facing the fears that come with ageing and death. Join us on Saturday morning to learn a step-by-step technique that challenges us to overcome fear by revealing its true nature. Link to register in comments!

Join us! Everyone welcome!

Were a part of all of this! And were looking forward to the Coming Back to Our Senses program at 10 am Eastern on Saturday! You can still join us here https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=455436

Join us this week! More info and registration through link below!!

Join us next Saturday as senior teacher Nick Kranz teaches us to Come Back to Our Senses and why its so important! Registration through website calendar at link in comments!

What we do right now creates the future, for ourselves and others.

Online and open to all! And there's still time to register! The current moment of uncertainty is full of potential for individual and collective change and this second course in the Basic Goodness series, explores our relationship with societal change, our aspirations to help our world, and the aspects that impact transformation; family, economy, work and art. More info and registration at https://toronto.shambhala.org/program-details/