[basq]

Zen is extremely misunderstood in the west. Mostly because what we understand of it comes from a conman and his followers who appropriated it a la scientology/mormonism.

Therefore, the default assumption when seeing 'zen' mentioned is that it's the bogus religion version.

[Agentlien]

That's interesting, what was his name and where can I read more about it?

[its_bbq]

This may be a leak of the pet theory of /r/zen that Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen, was a fraud and that Zen is somehow not Buddhism. I haven't seen this theory taken seriously anywhere else.

[basq]

Calling it a 'pet theory' is extremely disingenuous. Of course every scientologist will 'not take seriously' claims that their founder was a conman, because to do so is to admit their beliefs are based on falsehoods. It's a self reinforcing system.

[denton-scratch]

If most of what we know of Zen in the West was disseminated by him and his followers, that points to DT Suzuki. I'm not aware that he was a con-man, although he appears to have had some pretty distasteful opinions.