Sri Lanka, Feb. 12 -- Can a Buddhist nation - a truly Buddhist one, not one that nominally follows the Buddha's teachings - reach economic powerhouse status? It is an academic question, but lifestyles do matter when countries aim to 'develop and prosper.'

A truly contented person has no need to compete, to massage their individual ego, and acquire material possessions that are deemed necessary merely because the other person has them. Conspicuous spending is a fetish because we are expected to live upto the standards of the Jinadasas (which to the unsuspecting, is the local equivalent of the Joneses.)

But the more people chase after material enrichment due to a need to satisfy the greed to keep-up, the less happy and content they become...