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“Dāna as Social Action: Discourses on Material and Spiritual Giving” with Sean Oakes

Saturday, September 26, 2026 @ 9:00 am - 12:00 pm Pacific
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Cost:
Dāna Program
This dana program is freely offered in the spirit of generosity. Any donation you can offer to the teacher and to the Sati Center to continue making these teachings available is greatly appreciated.

Online via Zoom

What does it mean to give skillfully—and why does it matter for our practice? Drawing on early Buddhist discourses on dāna, this half-day study class explores giving as a practice that shapes communities, delights the heart, and opens the path to liberation.
We will examine the Buddha’s praise of giving at all levels: that even rinsing water offered with goodwill is beautiful, and explore the Pāyāsi narrative’s lesson that how we give—with care or indifference—determines how the act generates kamma (DN 23). Looking at the story of Anāthapiṇḍika the great donor, we’ll reflect on giving as social action, wealth redistribution, and mutual aid—supporting the Saṅgha but also creating a radical alternative economy based on gift rather than commerce.
Through text study, reflection, and discussion, we’ll look at dāna as both an ethical and contemplative practice—one that reduces clinging, builds right relationship, and plants seeds for awakening.

About the Instructor:
Sean Feit Oakes, PhD, E-RYT, SEP (he/they, queer, Puerto Rican & English ancestry, living on unceeded Pomo land in NorCal), teaches Buddhism and somatic practice focusing on the integration of meditation, trauma resolution, and social justice. He received teaching authorization from Jack Kornfield, and wrote his dissertation on extraordinary states in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance. He teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, East Bay Meditation Center, Insight Timer, and locally.

Dr. Oakes’ primary Buddhist teachers include Jack Kornfield, Sylvia Boorstein, Eugene Cash, Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Anam Thubten, and Sayadaw U Janaka, with whom he ordained as a bhikkhu for a Rains Retreat in Burma in 2002. He studied Yoga with Alice Joanou, Rachel Shaw, Amanda Moran, and David Moreno, and taught mindfulness-based āsana and prāṇāyāma for 10 years. He trained in Somatic Experiencing (SE) and Organic Intelligence (OI) with Steven Hoskinson, and integrates the complex systems approach from OI in work toward a distinctively Buddhist approach to individual and collective trauma resolution.



Details

  • Date: September 26
  • Time:
    9:00 am - 12:00 pm PDT
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