Spiritual materialism is a term coined by Chögyam Trungpa in his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. The book is a compendium of his talks explaining Buddhism given while opening the Karma Dzong meditation center in Boulder, Colorado. He expands on the concept in later seminars that became books such as Work, Sex, Money. He uses the term to describe mistakes spiritual seekers commit which turn the pursuit of spirituality into an ego-building and confusion-creating endeavor, based on the idea that ego development is counter to spiritual progress. Conventionally, it is used to describe capitalist and spiritual narcissism, commercial efforts such as "new age" bookstores and wealthy lecturers on spirituality; it might also mean the attempt to build up a list of credentials or accumulate teachings in order to present oneself as a more realized or holy person. Author Jorge Ferrer equates the terms "Spiritual materialism" and "Spiritual Narcissism", though others draw a distinction, that spiritual narcissism is believing that one deserves love and respect or is better than another because one has accumulated spiritual training instead of the belief that accumulating training will bring an end to suffering.

Lords of Materialism

In Trungpa's presentation, spiritual materialism can fall into three categories — what he calls the three "Lords of Materialism" (Tibetan: lalo literally "barbarian") — in which a form of materialism is misunderstood as bringing long-term happiness but instead brings only short-term entertainment followed by long-term suffering:

Ego

The underlying source of these three approaches to finding happiness is based, according to Trungpa, on the mistaken notion that one's ego is inherently existent and a valid point of view. He claims that is incorrect, and therefore the materialistic approaches have an invalid basis to begin with. The message in summary is, "Don't try to reinforce your ego through material things, belief systems like religion, or certain emotional states of mind." In his view, the point of religion is to show you that your ego doesn't really exist inherently. Ego is something you build up to make you think you exist, but it is not necessary and in the long run causes more suffering.