Sean Oakes

Monday Night Meditation & Talk (51ML24) Registration closes at 8:15pm (US Pacific Time) on Monday, December 16, 2024. A recording* will be available following the program. If you would like acces...

I'll be teaching the SR Monday night class online next week. Draft title: "Right Letting Go: Renunciation and Wise Attention." Climate and the polycrisis, and we'll think through layers of personal and collective responsibility and wise action.

spirit-rock.secure.retreat.guru/program/mond...

Also... Gukesh! Brilliant play, but also crazy luck after Ding's Rf2 blunder. Chess drama! So slow but so satisfying.

#WorldChessChampionship2024 #GoGukesh

Last quarter of dragon year is throwing big. May the fall of the Assad dynasty in Syria be the seed for a turn toward peace and well-being for the people of Syria and across the region.

How you walk, sit, listen, respond, and demonstrate maturity and graciousness of heart is the testament that most speaks well of your practice, our lineage, and even your political passion. Good luck out there. ;)
11/11

(Thanks for reading! Trying out threading a post here. Lmk if it resonates.)

Wherever you find yourself eating next Thursday, and whoever talking with, I encourage you to preach the Dhamma of non-violence, truthfulness, kindness, and inner clarity not so much in your words but through your whole being.
10/11

Righteous words unskillfully spoken can cause harm, and in moments like these may not lead to real change.
9/11

It may be that if we want to balance preserving relationships with being in integrity with ourselves we may take a position that is more renunciate than we are instinctually drawn to, and let go of the impulse to express our rage or grief there.
8/11

But also, as a Dhamma practice I encourage us to reflect on what might be most kind, helpful, and timely in such conversations, and what our intention is in bringing our views and emotions to that table.
7/11

There are arguments in favor of activism at the dinner table, refusing to be insincere with our family when our views are so different from theirs and we perceive their views as harmful. I respect this approach.
6/11

One of the principles of right speech that can support us in situations like the family Thanksgiving table, where differences of view can be stark, is the reminder that speech is most likely to lead to a beneficial result when it is not only true, but kind, helpful, and timely.
5/11

But I do attend Thanksgiving with family and friends, and do not want to create further distance or tension in families often already strained by political difference, especially now.
4/11

My gratitude for the many comforts and joys of my life is tempered by feeling grief for living on land that was stolen, and this troubles the ritual celebration of a meal that honors that theft and the genocide that followed.
3/11

Gratitude of course is a deep and beautiful emotion to cultivate, but gratitude is best when a response to wholesome pleasures like good friendship, the Dhamma that so enriches our lives, and the beauty and generosity of the Earth our home.
2/11

Blessings as you head into a holiday week that I know is difficult for many of us as we increasingly reckon with the colonial reality behind the myth of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving wise speech thread... 1/11

An image by Mike Boening of the Philadelphia skyline at sunset, with a Buddhist quote overlaid: "From afar, good people shine like the Himalaya mountains. Close up, bad people disappear like arrows shot into the night. (Dhammapada 304)

Hi. Arriving here along with so many others following the election. I'll mostly post Buddhist material, in conversation with the larger cultural moment as best I can. Here's a quote I posted right after the 2020 election. Then it was celebratory, today it's maybe more of a long view.