(and when in Ireland...bogtrotter?)
Christmas Humphreys' "Sixty Years of Buddhism in England": Book Review
Six decades spans the coming of Buddhism as a novelty to the island into its hesitant acceptance, during the countercultural efflorescence, as a hip commodity. He compiles the movement's history, as unflagging co-founder of the Buddhist Society in 1924 that overlapped an earlier one founded in 1907.
He follows the Society's fortunes briskly, in a rapid survey of its challenges during both wars, and especially what faced its members when WWII London engulfed, literally, its situation. The men had to choose to serve or not, and Humphreys tells fairly of their decisions, and of the bravery that those in the City had to find within themselves as their Headquarters faced the flames. He learns the lesson of impermanence, to be sure.
Humphreys also shows characteristic wit. He finds at Westminster Cathedral circa 1928 a Catholic Truth Society pamphlet by one G. Willoughby-Meade, "Buddhism in Europe." It opens with a tirade against "a much more insidious foe" than even Spiritualism. Humphreys notes how: "The whole pamphlet is a fine example of the psuedo tolerance of Rome, which advises a careful examination of all other points of view on the unshakable assumption that they are all wrong." (31-2) Its condescending tone towards Buddhist adherents as "little children stumbling in the dark" will not be the last manifestation of the kind of intolerance that Humphreys and his cohorts will face in Britain.
Still, they soldier on as peaceful warriors. He promotes dharma as a harmony of religion (of a non-theistic sense) and science, a rational philosophy rather than dogmatic authority, and one offered "with humility and tolerance, yet as provably true, as tested by thousands of years of experience." (75) He strives to make it understandable for Westerners. Some later have criticized his approach as too humanist, too soft, but for his era, before the widespread transmission of Tibetan and Zen techniques over much of the West, he sought to dispel misunderstandings of a incense-wafting, nihilistic, idol-worshipping, Void-obsessed cult that repelled timid pallid inquirers.
In this, published in 1968, we find an concluding appeal for a more lasting Buddhism than a fad for instant enlightenment by chemicals or charlatans. He advises, against the fervor of that time, for a Buddhist institution to eschew "politics of any kind," but he also encourages each Buddhist to exemplify its deathless precepts in a disciplined, committed fashion. By this, he reckons, more by example than "by useless and generally harmful interference" can be done.
Arguable, but from one who lived through two World Wars and defended and prosecuted many at the Bar, he shows here as in his autobiography (1978's "Both Sides of the Circle"--also reviewed by me) a mature defense of one who sought to go beyond the introverted stance of many of his fellow British Buddhists and who took on moral causes as his own dogged radical in conformist's clothing. He and his colleagues as summarized in this report tried to put down roots within, rather than lay them across, the Western soil where they transplanted Buddha's message "against the darkness now descending on the spiritual world." (84)
Illustration: "Buddhism in England" 5:2 (June 1930) Published by the "Buddhist Lodge" in London, as an early effort of Humphreys and cohort to bring such experts as D.T. Suzuki-- via a publication later under the editorship or Alan Watts-- to the attention of Western audiences. (Posted to Amazon US 4-18-10)
anectdotal comment from alanindyfed...
Christmas Humphreys and a group of leading British buddhisists from the Buddhist Society were sitting down to a meal in a London restaurant and with them was the zen roshi Jiyu Kennett, an english woman who had gone to Japan and had become a zen master, and who later went on to found the zen monastery at Mount Shasta in California and the zen retreat at Throssel Hole in Northumberland.
They ordered vegetarian meals but to the surprise of her buddhist colleagues roshi Kennett ordered chicken and chips. When asked why she had not ordered a vegetarian meal she announced "when eating eat with relish!" and she promptly picked up a leg of chicken and devoured it.
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 Reverend Master Jiyu-Kennett, was a renowned Zen Buddhist teacher of the Soto tradition. She was a British born roshi, most famous for having been the first female ordained and given permission to teach by the Soto School of Japan to teach in the West. Jiyu-Kennett Roshi lasting legacy was the founder of Shasta Abbey in Mount Shasta, California in 1970. In 1978, her order became known as the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. The order standardized the teaching and regulating the conduct of all the members. It is a celibate order, which today has branches in the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the West Indies. Jiyu-Kennett was also responsible for the founding of two training temples one at Shasta Abbey, California, and Throssel Hole Abbey in Northumberland, England. [1] | |||
Date of Birth: 01 Jan, 1924 Location: United States State: California | |||
| Views: 141 Summary Teresa Nancy Kennett was born on January 1st,1924, in St Leonards-on-Sea, England. She studied music, first at the University of Durham and then later at Trinity College, London, where she obtained her bachelor’s degree. [2] As a young woman, she had thought to join the Church of England, but with the Church’s refusal to ordain woman she grew evermore disillusioned with Christianity. In 1954, she joined the London Buddhist Society, becoming a member of its council. In 1960, Reverend Keido Chisan Koho Zenji, Chief Abbot of Daihonzan Sojiji, visited London. During the course of his visit, he invited Miss Kennett to return to Japan with him and become his disciple. [2] On January 21st, 1962, whilst enroute to Japan via Malaysia, Jiyu-Kennett became ordained as a bhikkuni, Reverend Seck Kim Seng, in the Lin Chi School. In Japan, she commenced her training in Sojiji under Keido Chisan Koho. Her name was changed to Jiyu (Compassionate Friend) and she was also given the family name Houn (Dharma Cloud). She received Dharma Transmission from Chisan Kohno who later, certified her as a senior teacher or Roshi. Traditionally shiho, ordination ceremonies for woman were held in private whilst men’s ceremonies were held in public. Koho decided to break with tradition and Jiyu-Kennett’s shiho was held in public. According to Jiyu-Kennett’s account, "I have never done a ceremony with more terror inside me, than that one with twelve men down each side, each one with curtains drawn as if to say 'I'm not here.' Those were the witnesses. Try that sometime! That can be pretty scary—in a foreign country, in a language you're not one hundred percent sure of, with a lot of people who are hating your guts. And the reason Koho Zenji did it—and I've got it on tape—was for the benefit of women in his country."[3] After her teacher's death in 1969, she decided to return to the West. Stopping of in San Francisco in November 1969, she decided to stay in the US. In 1970, she founded the Zen Mission Society, a feministic Zen at Shasta Abbey. [4] In 1972, Jiyu-Kennett’s British chapter was established at Throssel Hold Priory in Northumberland, England. [5] In 1975, Jiyu-Kennett was stricken by a serious of illnesses and was bedridden. In 1976, she resigned as abbess of Shasta Abbey. Over the next year she experienced numerous visions which raised questions about her mental state. Stephen Batchelor describes these episodes, "The visions lasted for 12 months, until 26 January 1977, the first twelve occurring in Oakland, the rest at Shasta, where she returned on 25 October. Each vision unfolded as a dream-like episode, charged with Western and Buddhist religious symbolism, superimposing itself on whatever she saw around her. She compared the series of visions to an elaborated contemporary version of the classical Zen images of the ten 'ox-herding' pictures. By the time the final vision faded, she was cured. She interpreted the experience as that of a 'third kensho.”[6] In 1978, the order became known as the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives and in 1985 new rules were implemented that required monastics to be celibate. She died on November 6th,1996, of a diabetes related illnesses at Shasta Abbey. Book: "Selling Water by the River" | |||
