Only if the only exposure you have to it is pop culture and the Dalai Lama’s PR. It’s a religion like any other, so it often ends up filling the role of any other religion.

It’s not, it’s all in the interpretation.

Lot of stories of small villages tormented by authoritarian “monks” who enforce their own strict view of Buddhism, often with racial or other connotations.

The religion itself is great, Christianity itself should also be a peaceful religion, but the same shinto-buddhist tradition evolved into the pre-ww2 Japanese military expansionist mindset, every religion is also a product of its followers.

The military is using Buddhist monks under their control to push an ultra-nationalistic extremism into politics (as seen elsewhere in the world). They basically used it in the years prior to the coup to incite ethnic conflicts and justify military actions in certain regions including Rakhine where Rohingyas live. They cited that instability as the main excuse to stage the coup after election victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party. This coup has been years in planning and execution when they realized they couldn’t win the election fairly under the constitution they wrote because of the popularity of Suu Kyi’s party.