> all the 'fluff' came later.

Believing certain stuff is “fluff” is precisely the dubious attempt at reconstruction that I was talking about.

In terms of their own practices, the Japanese practicing Zen in their own country, and the teachers who came to the West, had the excuse of being born into an existing cultural tradition that had evolved the way it had. First-generation Westerners taking on Buddhism, but only such things as they can feel comfortable with, and then claiming that what they put together is the authentic core Buddhism, just look like cultural appropriators.