Sean Feit Oakes

Author: Sean Oakes

  • Self-judgment, karma and Selflessness (anattā)

    How self-judgment is interwoven with the unfolding of Action and its Results, or kamma/karma, and the implications for our sense of self, leading to the subtle and difficult teaching of Selflessness, or anattā.

  • Hatha Yoga Sadhana: The Subtle Dance

    Physical movement with the goal of cultivating energy is one of the most dynamic and creative types of liberation practice. It has been part of both Buddhist and Hindu-lineage contemplative work since the earliest centuries of Yoga and asceticism as formal paths in South Asian spiritual life. Resources for this practice: For an online intro to…

  • Grief and Mourning, after the Oakland Ghost Ship fire

    Here’s some background on this terrible fire that shocked our community. I knew someone who died in it, and people in the Satsang community also lost friends. The talk touches on grief and mourning, and the room was really heavy. I’m glad we had the space to gather.

  • Traces of a past life

    [Putting the last few words and videos I have from my brightest years as a performance artist here. How tremendously far away they, this I, feel. Making it a “post” instead of a “page,” date-stamped, scroll-lost, faded even more. I almost just left it off the new site entirely, but this is better. A little…

  • The 3 Characteristics (tilakkhaṇa)

    The 3 Characteristics or Marks (tilakkhaṇa) of all conditioned things. These three comprise the core insights that begin the path of Liberation from Suffering in the Theravāda tradition. 1. Impermanence, the constancy of Change (anicca) 2. Unsatisfactoriness, the first Noble Truth, Suffering (dukkha) 3. Selflessness, Emptiness of Independent Essence (anattā)

  • The 5 Ethical Precepts (sīla)

    Buddhism as a liberation path is a gradual purification of the heart that takes root as we see more clearly, stop clinging so much, and grow out of confusion about who we are into the maturity called wisdom. Wisdom is expressed partly as understanding: everything changes, and many things hurt, but there’s an openness, a…

  • The teaching of the 6 Realms as a metaphor for privilege

    The Buddhist cosmological framework of the “6 Realms” can be read both as a map of where beings go from lifetime to lifetime, and/or a map of the psychological-emotional-relational states we pass through in the course of this life. Both are valuable. Here’s a discussion of the map in relation to the social justice work…

  • The gratification, the danger, and the escape

    A classical teaching on why it’s so hard to let go, but why we must, if we want to find freedom from suffering. Talk given at Insight Meditation Satsang, Yoga Tree Telegraph.

  • After the Orlando nightclub attack

    Talk: Responding to the tragedy in Orlando. (6.16.16)

  • Theravada Refuge & Precepts Pūjā

    Every week at Satsang, we do a short chanting ceremony called a pūjā, or devotional ritual. We chant a few ancient verses in Pāli, the language of the early Buddhist texts. These verses are excerpts from a longer  sequence of chants done daily in Theravāda monasteries, emphasizing the basic lay (non-monastic) practices of going for refuge…

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