By Darren Lim, as told to The Asian Diaries

I used to think the only way out of burnout was through it.

Back in Singapore, I co-founded a B2B SaaS startup that grew faster than any of us expected. Series A came with an office expansion, late-night Slack marathons, and a caffeine addiction that made my Apple Watch panic. By 32, I had everything I once wanted: a CEO title, a modest paycheck, and investors who believed in us. But I was running on fumes. I was anxious, insomniac, and addicted to notifications. My mind was loud. Always on. I traveled–everywhere–constantly–always working.

A friend of mine—an engineer who took six months off to travel—once told me, “If you want to turn the volume down, go monk mode.” I laughed it off. But a year later, I wasn’t laughing. I was Googling “Thailand meditation retreat” at 3AM while lying in bed with a racing heart. I was on a business trip and felt totally lost.

That’s how I found myself in Bangkok, boarding a dusty minivan headed north to a forest monastery. I won’t name it here out of respect for the teachers, but it’s one of many across Thailand that offer Vipassana meditation retreats for foreigners. Free of charge. No phones, no books, no talking. Just you, a mat, a cushion, and 4AM wake-up bells.

The transition was brutal. On Day 1, I fumbled through the morning alms round, clumsily folding my hands while villagers placed food in our bowls. I felt like an imposter in borrowed robes. Meals were taken in silence. The afternoons were long and hot. I wasn’t allowed to journal, which I usually rely on to process things. There was nothing to do but sit, walk, breathe, repeat.

But slowly, something began to shift. By Day 4, the silence stopped feeling suffocating. I began noticing my thoughts—really noticing them—like traffic passing through a busy intersection. The swirl of anxiety, the startup stress, the to-do list that never ended… it all started to feel like noise I didn’t have to obey. One monk said it simply: “Don’t be so loyal to your thoughts.” That line stuck with me.

I met other foreigners there, too—one was a UX designer from Tokyo on sabbatical, another was a digital nomad from Seoul trying to quit nicotine. Most of us were from cities where being still is almost unnatural. And yet here we all were, learning how to watch our breath like it was a lifeline. In a way, it was.

When I returned to Singapore ten days later, I didn’t come back with cosmic answers. But I did come back with clarity. I stepped down as CEO a month later and took on an advisory role. I now teach mindfulness workshops for founders and product teams. I still meditate every morning—just 20 minutes, nothing extreme. But it’s enough to keep me tethered.

This wasn’t some Eat, Pray, Love fantasy. I didn’t “find myself” in the forest. What I did find was space: space between thoughts, between work and worth, between burnout and presence.

And here’s the thing: I’m not alone.

According to the Thailand Ministry of Public Health, the number of foreigners participating in meditation retreats has more than doubled in the last decade. Many are professionals from Asia’s tech hubs—Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong—seeking something that startups can’t offer: silence, simplicity, and a chance to just be. “Monk mode,” once just a productivity meme on Twitter, has become a kind of spiritual rehab for the digital class.

Forest monasteries across Thailand, from Chiang Mai to Surat Thani, now host thousands of foreign meditators each year. Some come for three days, others stay for months. While traditional Buddhist practice remains the core, the appeal has expanded: in a world hyper-connected and overstimulated, nothing feels more radical than disconnection.

People sometimes ask me if I found what I was looking for out there. I usually smile and say: “Not really. But I stopped looking so hard.”