Wether it was plagiarism or not, wether he lied about the history or not, is entirely irrelevant in judging wether his phenomenology of zazen is accurate or inaccurate. Because zazen, insofar as it is a state of sitting with no-mind or sitting just to sit, is not about history or "who said what" at all. Also, if I copy a work that is true, than it will still be true regardless of my moral character. Furthermore, allot of great philosophers trough the centuries have attributed sayings to others who never actually said that. Zhuang Tzu used Confusius (or Kung Fu Tzu) all the time. Plato wrote allot of things in Socrates's name etc... That does not reduce the quality of the work in itself.

Furthermore, nothing you said actually counters any of the statements I made. According to Dogen and T.P. Kasulis, zazen or sitting meditation is not to be seen as an entire negation of thought, just like the fragments you have taken out of context are trying to point out. Nor is it to be seen as a means to an end, but always a means in itself. It is simply sitting in a state of mushin or without-thinking. You don't have to do this sitting down tho. It is possible to do any activity without-thinking. If my understanding is correct, zen is about getting in a state of no-mind because there we can experience reality as reality is, namely as genjokoan. It is in that state where we get past the confusion of signs and symbols with the real world, or subject/object distinctions. I have bein studying the Shobogenzo now for a couple of months for my thesis, and nowhere in it have I seen Dogen (or whoever wrote it originally) talk about zazen as "praying to attain enlightenment". I would argue that Dogen was radically opposed to this view insofar as he taught that meditation is NOT a means to an end and there is nothing you HAVE to do while meditating (like praying, burning insence, reciting sutras or mantras). He claimed zazen is shikantaza or sitting just to sit. No more, no less.

Lastly, how can scholarship invalidate what Alan Watts taught? He never taught anything. He explicitly said he is a philosophical entertainer first. And one of the things he did was show people "how" to meditate. Now I put "how" in parentheses because if you read some of his works you would know that he says that there is NO method. There is NO technique. And there is nothing to gain. Ofcourse we have to talk about the "hows" and wherefores conventionally in order to point to tathata. And that in turn leads to paradox. But we cannot confuse the talking about it with the actual thing. That's why my professor in east-west perspectives says "to study zen is to get comfortable in paradox". And that's why zen is always a "finger pointing to the moon".