Purchasing Liminality:Meditation As A Commodity

This paper focuses on the latest business model emerging in urban China — paid meditation institutions.In a Chinese city where all aspects of life,from aesthetics to food,are accelerating,how can a monotonous and uninteresting form of leisure attract consumers and even create a "meditation fever" among the middle class? How to understand this paradox?How do consumers who spend money on meditation courses construct meaning in the process of consumption? The paper argues that the practitioners are essentially purchasing liminality which implies a brief separation from the social structure that surrounds them and a state of sacredness that transcends the everyday life through taking meditation courses.The paper aims to extend our understanding of meditation practice through exploring the impetus of therapeutic culture on the consumption of meditation and the neoliberal anxiety behind it.I suggest that meditation serves as a brief detachment from the ever-accelerating order of capitalism.