The Buddhist Way of Action

by Christmas Humphreys

Genres: Buddhism

195 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Travers Christmas Humphreys, QC was an English barrister who prosecuted several controversial cases in the 1940s and 1950s, and later became a judge at the Old Bailey. He also wrote a number of works on Mahayana Buddhism and in his day was the best-known British convert to Buddhism.

Reviews

[Reminiscence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. Much to digest.

[Shivsahay Shahu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice

[Peter Ruark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the older (pre-1980) books on Mahayana Buddhism, this stands out as one of the better ones. It avoids the hippy-dippy Zen popularization of Alan Watts by providing more context and discipline, but also avoids getting bogged down in theory at the expense of practice, as writings of D.T. Suzuki and Robert Kapleau tended to do. Christmas Humphries’ writings were an important step in making Zen Buddhism understandable to the West and providing practical explanation of how to live the Zen life in everyday practice. However, more recent books by writers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Charlotte Joko Beck provide fuller and more contemporary discussions, so this and other books by Humphries should not be the place to begin the understanding and practice of Zen. Still, Humphries is to be appreciated for his role in the development of Western Zen Buddhism and a journey through this book for the established Zen practitioner may be worthwhile.

[Smiley]

I bought this oldish paperback [THB60.00] at the SU Book Fair V today (Jan. 11). I think few people know and read Christmas Humphreys nowadays.