Alexander Berzin (scholar)

"The connotation of the Sanskrit word for a hell, Naraka, is a joyless."

"But if you want to tap into Berzin’s authority, then you should also acknowledge the latter’s belief in a soft and whitewashing view of Islam. He has devoted his best energies to Buddhist-Islamic dialogue, and like most people engaged in dialogue with Islam, he has interiorised a rosy view of Islam, where Jihad becomes a moral struggle against the evil in oneself, where “the enemies of religion” are not the unbelievers out there but the untamed passions inside. The same view prevails among Western converts to Buddhism about the “real” meaning of the Shambhala War, where the enemies of Buddhism who have to be destroyed are the evil tendencies in ourselves."