The Triratna Story by Vajragupta

East End Buddhaland In the next few weeks a team of eight Order members and Friends will set up camp in the crumbling rooms of the fire station and get to work. Frequent working retreats will be held, and anyone who wishes to help at any time will be welcome to stay. We hope that in this way we will complete the work within a year, or with luck and hard work, sooner.14 In the event, it cost more than a quarter of a million pounds and took over three years.

A team of men moved in and started work in June 1975. They slept on the floor on sleeping bags, meditated together in the morning in the skeleton of the old fire station, worked hard all day on its renovation, studied and did puja in the evenings. Sometimes they wouldn’t leave the building for days, and they paid themselves only £5 ‘pocket money’ per week. As summer changed from autumn into winter, it got harder; there was no gas – so no heat – and the electricity wasn’t connected until Christmas.

The building was in a much worse state than they’d realized.

One day Atula, one of the few team members who actually had some building know-how, removed some of the floor timbers.

The joists underneath were infested with dry rot.

Intense idealism lived alongside extreme naivety. There was extraordinary determination, and a shocking lack of experience.

It was crazy, chaotic, and they often learned the hard way – by making mistakes. There was also tremendous excitement: they were bringing the Dharma to the West, something of great historical importance was happening, and they were right where it was taking place! Sangharakshita named the community Sukhavati, ‘full of bliss’, which is the name of the Buddhaland of Amitabha, the Buddha of the West.15 At one stage, the project ran out of money. Although some of the team took on external building jobs to raise more funds, 15