I went to the statue of the world's largest seated Buddha and there is an actual Buddhist temple inside and surrounding the statue. They were certainly peaceful and contemplative.

I guess Myanmar/Burma has been messed up so bad for so long perhaps they are uniquely radicalized?

People are being oppressed either militarily or economically all over the world. I think we are seeing the strain of that. People get desperate and impatient waiting for change through non violent ways. They begin to see violence as a quick fix. Unfortunately there is not quick fix to the world's problems. We must continue to work towards change through non violence even if it seems like it will never happen.

Definitely not the nonviolent variety.

So much for stereotypes.

Sure becomes hard to lay down hard rules about a group of people when they number in the millions.

And like the extremists of other religions, they tend towards violence, bigotry, and hatred.

Time had an article about them just last month: http://time.com/3090990/how-an-extremist-buddhist-network-is-sowing-hatred-across-asia/

-- Mal

FWIW I'm a big fan of the American Zen/Buddhism espoused by Pema Chodron and Joko Beck.

he probably will.

I believe in non violence, but if someone were to attack me I would do what I could to get away doing as little damage as possible.

I admire Buddhism and find great importance in their meditative traditions but the western view of it as being entirely pacifistic is just not true. You do have instances of Buddhists waging war ranging from Asoka to the Ikko-Ikki, in addition to martial religious traditions such as the Kalachakra. Now, this is not to say that this makes Buddhism unjust, quite the opposite, the wars waged by Buddhists have overwhelmingly been just endeavors, the modern anti-muslim animus in southeast asia aside.