Twenty-five years ago, I was very bored. I had no idea that it would eventually lead to prison libraries, documentary films, alcoholism, and a Tibetan mantra.

My Story 

Twenty-five years ago, when I got married, I moved to a new city. I had a good job, but I didn't know anyone, I had no friends or hobbies, and I was often bored.

One day I ran into an old acquaintance who had just been released from the local prison after serving seven years. We started talking, and he told me that while he was inside, someone had visited him and given him a book that had been found on a train. That book had such a profound effect on him that it completely changed his life.

That encounter started something in me as well.

I wasn't a religious person, yet I began collecting Christian books through the internet. I wrote to publishers, organizations, and churches, saying that I wanted to fill the local prison library with similar books, hoping they might have the same positive impact on others.

Strangely enough, we had bought our apartment from the deputy prison commander, who also happened to be a distant relative of my wife, so I felt that this connection might open the door to such a project.

I didn't expect much from the whole story. I thought: who would be crazy enough to support something like this at their own expense?

And yet, within two months, around 2,500 books arrived by mail at my home. These books not only reached the local prison but eventually found their way into almost every prison in Hungary.

Several local newspapers wrote about my initiative, and eventually the story reached England, where a former Hungarian emigrant—who had since become the director of a television channel—had a prison ministry film dubbed into Hungarian, which we then distributed in Hungarian prisons.

A few months later, I was invited to a national prison ministry conference, where I had to introduce myself publicly and explain where I came from, which organization I represented, and so on. I told them I was just an ordinary factory worker who had been browsing the internet on his phone out of boredom.

At the end of the conference, a young filmmaker couple approached me and said they wanted to make a documentary about reformed criminals and restored lives.

A few months later, the film was completed and was broadcast by one of Hungary's largest television channels.

Ironically, I ended up becoming the "producer," mainly because I was the only one who had 5,000 forints for fuel so we could reach the filming locations. It still makes me smile today.

In fact, this was only the first project, but afterward something powerful awakened in me. I grew to love organizing, the energy, the excitement, and perhaps, if I'm honest, a little bit of the public attention as well.

Over the next ten years, I organized eight summer canoe camps for children in state care and disadvantaged children.

In addition, I created educational motivation programs, a media school, sports and family events, and humanitarian aid projects.

If an army of volunteers had not joined these programs, none of it would have been possible.

I built all of this not through a foundation or institutional system, but completely from scratch, from the ground up, at my own expense, while working full-time as a foundry worker and steel melter in the steel industry.

To finance these programs, I also created a self-sustaining farm where we raised pigs and grew chili peppers.

Over the years, I received several city awards for this work, appeared frequently in the media, and in a particularly unusual twist, I was even knighted by a chivalric order.

Then, almost in the blink of an eye, that chapter of my life came to an end.

My children were born, and my family quite rightly asked that I spend the household money on them instead of on this strange hobby of mine. Of course, they were right.

But suddenly I had a lot of free time again that I needed to fill with something, so I bought a small weekend property on the banks of the Danube and started building.

Another five years passed, the house was finished, and because my energy remained but my sense of mission had disappeared, I turned in the wrong direction: I started drinking heavily with my neighbors.

I have to admit it: I have never been sober on my own property.

This wasn't the usual casual drinking—it was blackout drinking and chain-smoking.

As soon as I arrived at the property, I would drink 2–3 deciliters of vodka right in the driveway, and by evening another 2–3 liters of wine would disappear as well.

Once, after a four-day drinking binge, I ended up in intensive care with double pneumonia.

My family knew nothing about my self-destructive addiction because when everyone came out together on weekends, I didn't drink or smoke, and in town I was seen as a model family man.

People who drink often promise themselves that they will quit, but it usually lasts only until the next drink. I was exactly the same. My willpower was equal to zero.

Then, three months ago, my life was turned upside down once again.

One drunken night, I was chatting with ChatGPT (artificial intelligence) for fun and, out of curiosity, asked if it could recommend some spiritual or psychological trick—even a mantra—that might help me break free from this.

It asked whether I wanted a spiritual or psychological approach. I replied that perhaps the spiritual one might work.

A one-hour conversation followed, and by the end I was advised to start reciting the Buddhist Green Tara mantra—something I had absolutely no idea about.

The next day, when I sobered up, I thought the whole thing was obvious nonsense, but the following day at work I decided to try it anyway.

When I went outside into the factory yard for a cigarette after coffee (after 35 years of smoking), I started repeating the mantra: "Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha." I didn't visualize anything; I just repeated it for about two minutes.

Actually, nothing happened, except that I didn't light a cigarette that day.

Naturally, I gave myself all the credit.

Then three or four days passed without smoking, and later, while at the property, I didn't drink a single drop of alcohol.

Something began to seem suspicious, but I didn't know what.

The weeks passed, and since then:

For three months I have not smoked. I do not drink alcohol. I have developed a deep interest in Tibetan Buddhism. I am studying the basics of Buddhism, practicing various mantras every day with simple visualization, and I have even built a home altar. Since I understood that practice requires the approval of a lama, I obtained an online lung (oral transmission) from an American lama.

At the moment I am learning everything in a completely self-taught way. My practice includes Green Tara mantra meditation, morning prayers, daytime practices such as food offerings, and evening gratitude practice. Unfortunately, there is no living Buddhist community within about 100 kilometers where I could go for advice, meet other Buddhists, and learn from a teacher, but even so, I am doing just fine.

And that is my story. 🙂

The Lost Years 

And Then Green Tara Entered My Life :)