Monks with guns

Christal Smith explores the little-​​known his­tory of Buddhist vio­lence with Michael Jerryson, author of Buddhist Warfare.

Buddhists are people, and thus share the same human spectrum of emotions, which includes the penchant for violence.

—author Michael Jerryson

Jerryson argues that the West’s ide­al­ized image of Buddhism ulti­mately robs Buddhists of their human­ity. “Our inten­tion is not to argue that Buddhists are angry, vio­lent peo­ple, but rather that Buddhists are peo­ple, and thus share the same human spec­trum of emo­tions, which includes the pen­chant for violence.”