Over at the great One City blog, they have a good discussion going on over this Buddha shirt sold at Old Navy, the key question being:

“this is a good thing, right? The more mainstream yoga and Buddhist imagery gets, the more peaceful the world becomes …right?”

The answer, for some, seems to be, wrong. Some samples:

Alas, I would not buy it, mainly because I am unable to see past my preconception of great dislike for the whole Old Navy/Gap/Banana Republic conglomerate.

and:

a t-shirt that cost only $14.50 is definately made by someone who is not receiving proper wage, health care, living conditions…. etc.

I don’t know if that’s quite so automatically true, but there does seem to be a reason my circle of friends refers to this particular purveyor as “Old Slavey.”

On the flip, OC author gzza writes: The downsides of Buddhist merch are as noted. The plus side is, it helps Buddhist images (and therefore Buddhism in general) penetrate the general population’s consciousness. There are still many people in the West to whom Buddhism is still extremely foreign.

Check out the dialogue here.