Alright, let’s talk about mindfulness. Not the deep, centuries-old tradition. Not the practice of noticing your breath or observing your thoughts without judgment. I mean Mindfulness™ — the corporate wellness version. The one they serve in HR trainings, TED Talks, and $199 retreats. That’s the version Ronald Purser is coming for in McMindfulness, and let me tell you: he does not pull punches.
This book is a flamethrower.
It’s also careful, grounded, and deeply researched — but don’t let that academic tone fool you. What Purser’s doing here is radical. He’s not anti-mindfulness. He’s anti-bullsh*t. And this book is a long, slow, strategic dismantling of everything fake and feel-good about how mindfulness has been packaged and sold in the West.
Let’s dig in.
The core argument of the book is simple: mindfulness has been stripped of its ethical, social, and political roots. It’s been turned into a productivity tool. A stress-reduction hack. A way to help you cope with — instead of challenge — the systems that are burning you out.
It’s mindfulness without meaning. A practice designed to soothe symptoms, not ask questions.
In Purser’s words:
“The problem is not that mindfulness is being used in workplaces; the problem is how it’s being used — to promote acceptance of the status quo, not liberation from it.”
Let that sink in.
You’re not being taught mindfulness to become free. You’re being taught it so you don’t burn out too fast under capitalism.
The term comes from Miles Neale, a Buddhist teacher who coined it to describe the commodification of mindfulness into a kind of spiritual junk food — stripped of its context, sweetened with promises of inner peace, and sold to the highest bidder.
Think apps. Think executive retreats. Think 5-minute meditations sponsored by Amazon or Google. Think mindfulness being used to help drone pilots feel less stressed while bombing people.
No, seriously. That’s a real example from the book.
McMindfulness is the version of mindfulness that’s everywhere but means nothing. It’s the kind of self-help that helps you adapt to a sick system, not change it.
Purser digs deep into how corporations and governments have embraced mindfulness — not to liberate workers or reduce suffering, but to make people more compliant, more docile, more able to "accept what is."
It’s the weaponization of equanimity.
Mindfulness training becomes a way to offload responsibility. You’re not stressed because your job sucks — you’re stressed because you’re not present enough. You’re not depressed because of crushing economic precarity — you’re just too identified with your thoughts.
It’s the perfect neoliberal move: turn systemic issues into personal ones. Sell you a $49 course to fix a problem caused by billion-dollar systems.
One of the strongest parts of the book is how clearly Purser shows that mindfulness, in its original context, was never about personal calm. It was about waking up — to suffering, to injustice, to the nature of reality. It was embedded in a moral framework. It required community, intention, and a deep questioning of self and society.
Western mindfulness? It mostly skips that part. It cherry-picks the practices that can be turned into products and ditches the ones that might ask you to make uncomfortable changes.
And it’s not an accident. It’s design.
That’s the big question. Who wins when mindfulness is reduced to a breathing app?
And let’s be honest: a lot of people buy in because it feels good. Because it does help — at least a little. Because in a world on fire, five minutes of peace feels like a lifeline.
But Purser wants us to ask: at what cost? What are we trading away when we accept this shallow version of mindfulness as the real thing?
Purser doesn’t hold back on calling out the big names:
None of this is exaggeration. It’s all documented. And it’s devastating.
Purser is not here to cancel mindfulness. He’s not saying “don’t meditate.” He’s saying: if your mindfulness practice isn’t connected to a deeper awareness of the world around you — to structures of power, oppression, inequality — then it’s not doing what it’s supposed to.
It’s spiritual bypassing. It’s calming down when you should be speaking up.
And yeah, that’s uncomfortable. But it also feels true.
That’s the question the book leaves you with.
Purser gestures at answers — reconnect with the ethical roots of mindfulness, build communities of practice that engage with the world, use mindfulness as fuel for action, not escape.
But ultimately, it’s on us to figure out what that looks like.
Reading McMindfulness felt like having someone finally say out loud what’s been bugging you for years.
That weird tension between the promise of mindfulness and the way it gets used in places that feel... off.
That sense that peace shouldn’t come at the cost of awareness.
That nagging feeling that maybe you’re not the problem — maybe the system is.
This book is a gut check. And a call to practice. But not the sanitized, appified kind. The kind that asks hard questions. That wakes you up, not just calms you down.
Read it if:
Skip it if:
For me, this one goes next to The End of Burnout, The Dawn of Everything, and bell hooks on the shelf. It’s not a warm bath. It’s cold water to the face.
And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.