Materialism, consumerism, and religion: A Buddhist vision for nonprofit marketing

Abstract

This study delves into the interaction between materialism and religion and explores how consumers reconcile their religious precepts with materialism in today's consumerist society, with an ethnographic study of one of the world's largest Nichiren Buddhist organizations. The study reveals that instead of ideological ways of thinking that often resorts to rigid categorization, such as spiritualism at conflicts with materialism and liberalism opposing socialism, religion can transcend the spirit of materialism and the duality that characterizes most thinking. It can harmonize even the apparently contradictory entities of consumerism, materialism, and spiritualism and root itself in the reality of life, leading to an individual inner revolution and consequent social transformation.