1980s

A small group of students begin to come to Catherine Rathbun for teachings, initially gathering and meeting at her home, while occasionally renting larger spaces when necessary.  Some came individually, others in groups. Many originally met Catherine through her York University course, "Meditation and Movement". Others came simply impelled by a thirst for spiritual learning in an environment free from guru-worship and religious politics. Many of these latter students had previous connections with spiritual practice, but felt unable to progress in their studies in conventional settings.

Early 1990s

The small group joins together to find a bigger space for practice. A house is rented and the living room is generously offered as a permanent teaching space.

1992

We were given an inactive charitable corporation by another group and we chose to name it "Friends of the Heart".

April 1998

We found and moved into our current location at 2510 Yonge Street, where we began to offer regular meditation classes. At that time we also started to organize longer retreats at rented locations in the countryside.

2000 to 2004

Catherine reduces her public teaching role, concentrating more energy on one-on-one work with intensive students and on writing.

2000

Membership grows.

A number of students mature to the point of becoming instructors in their own right and for the first time in the history of Friends of the Heart, we began to offer regular classes not taught by Catherine.

When in 2000 Catherine took a six-month leave of absence to teach in Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand, Friends of the Heart was able to continue to offer classes in her absence.

April 2001

In an effort to help Catherine continue to teach distant students in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Europe and in North America, Friends of the Heart held our first Internet Teaching. These netcasts were a 2 hour live teaching and meditation done over the web.  Students were able to respond and ask questions by text messaging in a dedicated chat room.  Since then there have been well over 20 more netcasts.

 

Early 2002

Catherine releases her first book, Discovering the World Mind: A Study of the Elements Mandala of Tibetan Buddhism, published by Friends of the Heart.

 

Autumn 2004

Catherine discovered that she had breast cancer.  In the months that followed, she had surgery and chemotherapy.  Netcasts put in abeyance.  Many senior teachers move on in order to direct their energies to other projects and communities.

2007

Catherine is diagnosed cancer free!  She steps back from active teaching to work on her second book (Clear Heart, Open Mind) on the compassion practice of Chenrezig and to do more personal retreats.  She visits FOH for special teaching sessions approximately once every couple months.

November 2008

Catherine's second book Clear Heart Open Mind is released,

Where We Are Now

Today we offer classes and retreats led by David Liang, guest teachers as well as Catherine. Through an outreach program we offer corporations, non-profits, schools and health care organizations the opportunity to incorporate meditation training into their own programs on their own premises.

What the future holds, we do not know. If 10 years ago we could have seen forward to what members have accomplished today, we would have been amazed.