Buddhism is not especially peaceful. The Sihalese Buddhist monk caste in Sri Lanka is known for encouraging violence in service of ethnically cleansing the Tamil minority in the north. In Myanmar the Theravda Buddhist clerics largely aligned themselves with the military dictatorship. The Buddhist theocracy in Tibet violently enforced serfdom. The conception of Buddhism as a harmless and peaceful meditation-religion exists only in the west.

Any religion is, ultimately, a tool of social control.