mixedmedia

You mean the other Buddhists? The monks are not operating within a vacuum. They are leading other Buddhists.

Although Buddhists using violence isn't unprecedented. Even in the modern age. If you remember the violent struggles in South Korea in the late '90s between different factions of Buddhist monks there.

But I don't think it is a precendent that most Buddhists look on as particularly Buddha-like.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
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