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>imbue work with a spiritual aura

What?

>"turn workplaces into productivity-centered 'faith communities.'"

Huh?

>"Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western appropriation of Buddhism"

Appropriation feels like a strong word. Are we not supposed to try new ideas from outside the tech industry? Ever? Chen's thesis in this article feels like a dramatic take.

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You can try whatever you like, I think the angle is more about how meditation of various kinds are being adopted while other pieces of their source may be neglected, and this is in service to corporations and capitalism. I don't think it's inherently bad, but the insinuation is it's putting more of the spiritual/community stuff that we got from religion into our work, by moving stuff like mindfulness and conscious 'loving-kindness' into the corporate setting. Centralizing your needs into the hands of big corp :)

I don't feel like I can speak to the usage of appropriation or other wokespeak though.

I think one extremely problematic part of this trend is that civic participation necessarily suffers when one’s life is in such close orbit around the workplace.

If one scarcely has the time to be informed about the state of the world, then forget being engaged or even organizing others.

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