The Decadence Of Discipline

How the meditation retreat became the new private villa, and spiritual snobs our ruling class.

- Mike Albo

In November 2018, Jack Dorsey, the brains behind Twitter, declared that he had gone on a 10-day silent retreat in Myanmar to practice vipassana, considered the oldest form of Buddhist meditation. Sounding more like the Monk of Silicon Valley than the Disruptor of Wall Street, Dorsey explained that giving up “devices, reading, writing, physical exercise, music, intoxicants, meat, talking or even eye contact with others” was a “detox of all the noise in the world”. Never mind that he conveniently forgot about Myanmar’s violence towards the Rohingya minority, not to mention that much of that noise is amplified through the platform he invented. More telling was the inadvertent revelation of the latest status symbol reserved for the one percent: enlightenment. While you’re busy downloading Headspace and streaming a Tracy Anderson class, the extremely rich are locked in a holier-than-thou arms race to purge themselves of screens and discover inner peace.

Meet the spiritual snobs …

HASHTAG MINDFULNESS

They may swear off their phones and social media feeds, but open yours and you’ll find them aglow and gloating in an ashram more remote than Wakanda, tagging their posts #breathe. There they are at the Wanderlust Kundalini & Radiant Body immersion at Snowshoe Mountain, reminding you how gorgeous they look without makeup — through a Mayfair filter. Or at the Advanced Intuitive Healing training course at The Den in LA (three months, $2190), learning how to fix the holes in their auras. You might even see them at Kanye West’s exclusive Sunday Service, at an undisclosed location, singing hymns alongside Buddhist power couple Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry.