Privacy Policy

Last updated February 20, 2025.

Who we are

Our website address is: https://www.seanfeitoakes.com.

This the professional teaching site for Dr. Sean Feit Oakes.

This website also uses the alias “In It To End It”.

What personal data we collect & why we collect it

Visitor Data

This website is hosted by Squarespace. Squarespace collects personal data when you visit this website, including:

  • Information about your browser, network and device

  • Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website

  • Web pages you view while on this website

  • Your IP address

Squarespace needs the data to run this website, and to protect and improve its platform and services. Squarespace analyzes the data in a de-personalized form.

Fonts

This website serves font files from and renders fonts using Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts. To properly display this site to you, these third parties may receive personal information about you, including:

  • Information about your browser, network, or device

  • Information about this site and the page you’re viewing on it

  • Your IP address

Cookies

This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit The cookies Squarespace uses.

Analytics

This website collects personal data to power our site analytics, including:

  • Information about your browser, network, and device

  • Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website

  • Your IP address

This information may also include details about your use of this website, including:

  • Clicks

  • Internal links

  • Pages visited

  • Scrolling

  • Searches

  • Timestamps

We share this information with Squarespace, our website analytics provider, to learn about site traffic and activity.

Customer purchases and membership subscriptions

When you buy something on this website or subscribe to a membership, we collect personal information from you to fulfill the order and/or enable your member site access. We may collect information like your:

  • Billing and shipping address

  • Details relating to your purchase or subscription

  • Email address

  • Name

  • Phone number

We share this information with Squarespace, our online store hosting provider, so that they can provide website services to us.

Our payment processor Stripe will also collect payment information from you. You can read their privacy policy at https://stripe.com/privacy.

As you go through checkout, this site may auto-complete your shipping and billing address by sharing what you type with the Google Places API and returning suggestions to you to improve your checkout experience.

Customer Accounts

If you create a customer account on this website, we collect personal information to improve our checkout experience and customer service.

This information may include your:

  • Billing and shipping address(es)

  • Details about your orders (for example, your shirt size)

  • Email address

  • Name

  • Phone number

We share this information with Squarespace, our website hosting provider, so they can provide website services to us.

Emails

We may email you with messages about your order or account activity. For example, we may email you to tell you that:

  • You’ve created a customer account

  • Your customer account password has been reset or updated

  • You’ve made a purchase

  • Your order has shipped

It’s not possible to unsubscribe from these messages.

We share your contact information with Squarespace, our website hosting provider, so they can send these emails to you on our behalf.

We may send you marketing emails, which you can unsubscribe from by clicking the link at the bottom of the email. We share your contact information with Sendfox, our email marketing provider, so they can send these emails on our behalf.

Form Submissions

When you submit information to this website via webform, we collect the data requested in the webform in order to track and respond to your submissions. We share this information with Squarespace, our online store hosting provider, so that they can provide website services to us.

When you submit a contact form it sends an email to Dr. Oakes or a staff person, and technical support emails may be read by any staff person. The site and contact forms are not HIPAA compliant. Please do not transmit sensitive materials via contact forms or comments, including bodily or mental health information.

When you submit a newsletter subscription form we also share this information with Google for storage, with Zapier for data porting, and with Sendfox, our newsletter service provider.

Blog comments

This website includes commenting functionality on some pages which enables you to post a comment. This website collects personal data when you post a comment, including:

  • Your name (which will be displayed as part of your posted comment)

  • Your email address (optional, to let you know if someone replies to your comment)

  • Your website URL (optional)

This website includes “likes” functionality on some blog posts which enables you to “like” a post. This website collects personal data when you like a post to try to prevent the same person from liking the same post during the same visit, including:

  • Information about your browser, network and device

  • Details about the web page or content you shared or proposed to share

  • Your IP address

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with 

Payment Processing

We process credit card payments through Stripe. When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to Stripe, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information. Please see the Stripe Privacy Policy for more details.

We accept payments through PayPal. When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to PayPal, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information. Please see the PayPal Privacy Policy for more details.

Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Newsletter Subscriptions

When you submit a newsletter subscription form we share this information with Google for data storage, with Zapier for data porting, and with Sendfox, our newsletter service provider.

How long we retain your data

Comments

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

Accounts

For users that register on our website, we store the personal information they provide in their user profile for as long as their account exists. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time.

Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Newsletter Subscription

For users that subscribe to newsletters, we store the name and email address provided for as long as their subscription exists. Users can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link provided at the bottom of all newsletter emails.

How we protect your data

This site is hosted by Squarespace which implements and maintains technical and organizational security measures to protect company and customer assets and data. Squarespace has a dedicated security team that guides the implementation of controls, processes, and procedures governing the security of Squarespace and its customers, and monitors for threats and vulnerabilities 24/7 to ensure this website is protected. You can read their full security measures here: https://www.squarespace.com/measures

This site uses the secure version of HTTP (HTTPS), and our certificate is up to date.

The site and its contact forms are not HIPAA compliant.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How you can contact us about your data

If you have any questions, concerns or would like to request your personal data be erased, please contact us through the contact form on this website at www.seanfeitoakes.com/about#contact or by emailing admin@seanfeitoakes.com.

In Charge

“There are, mendicants, these three things to put in charge. What three? Putting oneself, the world, or the teaching in charge. And what, mendicants, is putting oneself in charge? It’s when a mendicant has gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut, and reflects like this: ‘I didn’t go forth from the lay life to homelessness for the sake of a robe, alms-food, lodgings, or rebirth in this or that state. But I was swamped by rebirth, old age, and death; by sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress. I was swamped by suffering, mired in suffering. And I thought, “Hopefully I can find an end to this entire mass of suffering.” But it would not be appropriate for me to seek sensual pleasures like those I abandoned when I went forth, or even worse.’ Then they reflect: ‘My energy shall be roused up and unflagging, mindfulness shall be established and lucid, my body shall be tranquil and undisturbed, and my mind shall be immersed in samādhi.’ Putting themselves in charge, they give up the unskillful and develop the skillful, they give up the blameworthy and develop the blameless, and they keep themselves pure. This is called putting oneself in charge.

And what, mendicants, is putting the world in charge? It’s when a mendicant has gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut, and reflects like this: ‘I didn’t go forth from the lay life to homelessness for the sake of a robe, alms-food, lodgings, or rebirth in this or that state. But I was swamped by rebirth, old age, and death, by sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress. I was swamped by suffering, mired in suffering. And I thought, “Hopefully I can find an end to this entire mass of suffering.” And now, since I’ve now gone forth, I might have sensual, malicious, or cruel thoughts. But the population of the world is large, and there are ascetics and brahmins who have psychic power—they’re clairvoyant, and can read the minds of others. They see far without being seen, even by those close; and they understand the minds of others. They would know me: “Look at this person from a good family; they’ve gone forth out of faith from the lay life to homelessness, but they’re living mixed up with bad, unskillful qualities.” And there are deities, too, who have psychic power—they’re clairvoyant, and can read the minds of others. They see far without being seen, even by those close; and they understand the minds of others. They would know me: “Look at this person from a good family; they’ve gone forth out of faith from the lay life to homelessness, but they’re living mixed up with bad, unskillful qualities.” Then they reflect: My energy shall be roused up and unflagging, mindfulness shall be established and lucid, my body shall be tranquil and undisturbed, and my mind shall be immersed in samādhi.’ Putting the world in charge, they give up the unskillful and develop the skillful, they give up the blameworthy and develop the blameless, and they keep themselves pure. This is called putting the world in charge.

And what, mendicants, is putting the teaching in charge? It’s when a mendicant has gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut, and reflects like this: ‘I didn’t go forth from the lay life to homelessness for the sake of a robe, alms-food, lodgings, or rebirth in this or that state. But I was swamped by rebirth, old age, and death, by sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress. I was swamped by suffering, mired in suffering. And I thought, “Hopefully I can find an end to this entire mass of suffering.” The teaching is well explained by the Buddha—realizable in this very life, immediately effective, inviting inspection, relevant, so that sensible people can know it for themselves. I have spiritual companions who live knowing and seeing. Now that I’ve gone forth in this well explained teaching and training, it would not be appropriate for me to live lazy and heedless.’ Then they reflect: ‘My energy shall be roused up and unflagging, mindfulness shall be established and lucid, my body shall be tranquil and undisturbed, and my mind shall be immersed in samādhi.’ Putting the teaching in charge, they give up the unskillful and develop the skillful, they give up the blameworthy and develop the blameless, and they keep themselves pure. This is called putting the teaching in charge. These are the three things to put in charge.”

“There’s no privacy in the world,
for someone who does bad deeds.
You’ll know for yourself,
whether you’ve lied or told the truth.

When you witness your good self,
you despise it;
while you disguise
your bad self inside yourself.

The gods and the Realized One see
the fool who lives unjustly in the world.
So with yourself in charge, live mindfully;
with the world in charge, be self-disciplined and practice absorption;
with the teaching in charge, live in line with that teaching:
a sage who tries for the truth doesn’t deteriorate.

Māra’s destroyed; the terminator’s overcome:
one who strives reaches the end of rebirth.
Poised, clever, knowing the world—
that sage identifies with nothing at all.”

(AN 3.40, tr. Sujato)