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STUDIES IN THE MIDDLE WAY

BEING THOUGHTS ON BUDDHISM APPLIED

CHRISTMAS HUMPHREYS

Third Edition

London

Publish for the Buddhist Society

By George Allen and Unwin Limited

PREFACE

These essays, written at different times and in different moods, are the outcome of experience in a field or thought which, curiously enough in a word which is overfull of -isms and -ologies, bears at yet no name. Including, as it does, religion, philosophy, mysticism, metaphysics, psychology and ethics, it may be describe in the vague though useful phrase, the Inner Life. This, however, has two distinct though complementary meanings: the introverted life of contemplation and the extravert life of action in the world of men. These essays, being written for the West rather than for the East, deliberately stress the latter point of view, emphasizing the inner life as a constant moving on and the mover as a pilgrim travelling an ancient way.

This way, described in every religion and alluded to in every system of thought which the deals with man, is a movement between those ‘pairs of opposites’ which seem to divide in two a Reality which is in essence One. This road to union was, therefore, called by Gautama the Buddha the Middle way, which leads, as the Lama said in Kim, 'from desire to peace’. Yet Buddhism has no monopoly of Truth, for it is but a branch, though a mighty branch, of a Tree of Wisdom which antedates all known religions and will outline them all. Its principles are to be found in Brahmanism and in the Tao Teh Ching, in the wisdom of Persia, and in the Egyptian Book of the Death, while in living memory Mme Blavatsky, in the Secret Doctrine and the Voice of The Silence, has offered the most complete compendium of the Wisdom which has yet been placed before the public eye.

It follows that these essays are not described by calling them Buddhism, or Theosophy, or any other name, for they spring from the author’s experience and not from the textbooks of any one philosophy, not, indeed, from a selective reading of them all. They, therefore have no validity, much less authority, for anyone who does not for himself apply their principles, and find them to be true…

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION

            I           THE BRANCHIES OF THE TREE

                        Poem : A Rose is Absolute

            II          THE RIVER OF BECOMING

                        Poem : All that is Done

            III        DENY NOTHING – AFFIRM ALL

            IV        SELF AS THE LORD OF SELF

                        Poem : Self

            V         THE USE AND ABUSE OF CIRCUMSTANCE

            VI        IN PRAISE OF PAIN

                        Poem : At a Buddhist Funeral

            VII       THE MIDDLE WAY

                        Poem : Search

            VIII     DANA : THE ART OF GIVING

            IX        BUDDHIST MORALITY

                        Poem : the Purpose of Affray

            X         WHY ARE WE AFRAID?

            XI        BUDDHISM AND GOD

                        Poem : One

            XII       BHAVANA – SELF ENLIGHTENMENT

            XIII     THE DOCTRINE OF IMMEDIACY

                        Poem : Zen

            XIV     THERAVADA AND ZEN

            XV      THE HEAD AND THE HEART

            XVI     BUDDHIST AND PSYCHOLOGY

            XVII    THEOSOPHY AND BUDDHISM

                        Poem : Onward

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