The Triratna Story by Vajragupta

The Triratna Story Ian Guthrie145 had been a heroin addict for nine years. For the last six of those he’d financed his habit through burglary, and had been to prison twice. One Thursday night in 1986 he was lying in bed in utter distress and despair; he just couldn’t face another day of heroin and crime. Suddenly, in the middle of the night – and he has no idea where it came from – he had the strong conviction that he needed to learn about Buddhism and meditation.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were the usual days of heroin, but on the Sunday night Ian walked past Croydon Buddhist Centre. He knew the place; he’d burgled it twice. A poster on the door advertised an ‘Open Evening’ on the Monday night. He went along.

Nothing spectacular happened, no amazing meditation experiences, but the people were warm and friendly and somehow he left the building with a new resolve to put heroin behind him. For the next two weeks, he went through ‘cold turkey’ while continuing to go along to classes at the Buddhist centre.

In the middle of those two weeks it suddenly hit him; he’d burgled these people who were trying to help him. The thought weighed on him terribly. Crying, he went straight out to the Buddhist centre and told two Order members, Padmaraja and Padmavajra, that he was the one who’d been burgling them. There was a silence and then one of them said, ‘Good, good … it’s good to meet someone so honest.’ This forgiving response was almost unbearable; he had been expecting them to get angry and call the police. Later, Ian made arrangements with them to repay the money he had stolen.

Later, he wrote to Sangharakshita and told him this story. He received a reply, the last line of which read, ‘With the help of spiritual friends, make up for lost time.’ Ian was ordained in 1999 and received the name Lokamdhara, ‘he who supports the world’. n 160