I can understand your conclusion and sentiment. It is also a trap one can easily fall into during meditation, and can lead to both the extremes of anti-material

I can understand your conclusion and sentiment. It is also a trap one can easily fall into during meditation, and can lead to both the extremes of anti-materialism and pure hedonism, as can be seen also in Buddhist (and other) cultures. This is exactly why the Buddha and later teachers emphasize on taking the middle road. In the end, meditation is observing things as they are, and theoretically you could do this while being an anti-materialist or a hedonist. However, people usually become anti-materialists because they want to block out a large collection of 'distractions', such as pleasanties. They would always be practicing half: such distractions are also part of reality. Hedonists on the other hand, easily become attached to their wealth, making progress in meditation hard as well. So teachers always advise to take a balanced approach to meditation: do not become an ascete, do not indulge too much in wealth, do not be lazy, also avoid zealotry. The mind, and world as it is in the moment provides all the necessary circumstances to learn to understand the mind. Then there is a practical dimension as well: a starving person is probably not able to meditate, a very wealthy person is probably not very willing to meditate. My personal interpretation of Buddhist ethics is, that it is aimed to create the circumstances for as many people as possible to reach enlightenment, and is not an absolute ethic system.