Beginnings
During the 1980s a small group of students began to come to Catherine Rathbun for teachings. 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.
At first, we gathered or met with Catherine at her home, occasionally renting larger spaces when necessary. It seemed truly impossible that such a small group could find a bigger space for practice but, in the early 1990s, several students believed the impossible, and rented a house together, generously offering their living room as a permanent teaching space.
Our Own Space
At about the same time (in 1992) we were given an inactive charitable corporation by another group. We named it "Friends of the Heart". In 1997 members turned their minds to yet another impossible thing and, in 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.
The Faculty Grows
Membership grew from the initial group of about 12 students to an active membership of 40 to 50 students and an active "moral support" base of donors and sponsors at least twice that size. A number of students had matured to the point of becoming instructors in their own right at Friends of the Heart. For the first time in our history, 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.
From 2000 to 2004, Catherine has reduced her public teaching role, concentrating more energy on one-on-one work with intensive students and on writing. In early 2002 her first book, Discovering the World Mind: A Study of the Elements Mandala of Tibetan Buddhism, was published by Friends of the Heart.
In the fall of 2004, Catherine discovered that she had breast cancer. In the months that followed, she had surgery and chemotherapy and since 2007 has been free of cancer but is still with diminished energy. So she stepped back from active teaching to work on her second book (Clear Heart, Open Mind, on Chenrezig compassion practice) and to do more personal retreats and to visit FOH for special teaching sessions. Gwen Robart and David Liang now teach most of the classes at FOH.
Distant Friends
In 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. Since then there have been well over 20 more netcasts. With Catherine's illness, these have been put in abeyance.
The 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.
Where We Are Now
Today we offer classes and retreats led by David Liang, Gwen Robart, and 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. We have published one book, a new book will be launched in November 2008, and several more are planned. More than 10% of our active members are "distance" participants, accessing the teachings through the netcasts, emails, making the trip to Toronto only for longer retreats.
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. So, what impossible things did you believe before breakfast today? They may come true!