When Jan Chozen Bays noticed purveyors of commercial products appropriating the word “Zen,” she responded with an open letter published in the Fall 2002 Buddhadharma.
My Storage Unit and Me
Writer Amy Gutman unpacks our attachment to stuff.
Meet The Three Lords of Materialism

The Lords of Form, Speech, and Mind – we think they’ll make us happy and secure, but Carolyn Gimian tells us that everything wrong with the world and our lives is their creation.
Zen Sells: How Advertising has Co-opted Spirituality
From computers to beauty products, Madison Avenue has discovered that spirituality sells. Todd Stein on the irony of spiritual themes in materialism.