Everyone, Alex’ lecture starts now!
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That was a very interesting lecture. @Alex-Wynne’s Youtube Video is here:
In brief, @Alex-Wynne argued for a diverse set of thinking in early suttas, on one hand the cosmic perspective examplified with Anuruddha, on the other, the cognitive-experiential apophatic tradition of Kaccana, former shaping Pure Land schools, the later shaping Prajnaparamita and Chan/Zen kind of schools.
Interesting observation! And perhaps we can say Vajrayana manages to merge them both again somehow, with elaborate fantastical realms and constant epistemic negation. 
Thank you @Sphairos for bumping up this thread.
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Dr. Wynne is a good didact - I was able to somewhat follow his train of thought even though I’m really not at all well-versed with the different lineages, the councils and stuff. What I take from it is that the composition of the Canon is by far more diverse than we tend to think.
Were there interesting questions at the end of the lecture? They weren’t streamed on youtube.
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Thanks to @Sphairos @Alex-Wynne and @Dogen. It’s nice that scholars are looking into these texts more carefully. Just a brief comment on this.
I find it rather strange that the example of two separate, divided, discordant traditions given is of Prajñāpāramitā and cosmic-Buddha genre like Pure Land sutras. The Perfection of Wisdom texts are full of “cosmic Buddha” allusions. The Aṣtasāhasrikā sūtra is incredibly colorful and elaborate in the earliest versions of it we have, with gods and demons and heroic intentions to become omniscient Buddhas, and a short epic at the end with incredibly over-the-top descriptions.
From Wikipedia:
The devas declare that they will highly regard a bodhisattva who practices as Subhūti describes—the Buddha relates how he was such a bodhisattva in the past when he met Dīpankara Buddha …
The Buddha points out that just as he teaches, so did all past buddhas, and so will Maitreya in the future …
The Goddess of the Ganges gains faith in the Prajñāpāramitā and it is predicted that after she studies under the Buddha Akṣobhya, she will become a Buddha called Suvarṇapuṣpa …
The Buddha declares that all the monks in the assembly will become buddhas called Avakīrṇakusuma. The Buddha then entrusts the sūtra to Ānanda for the first time, declaring that it should be worshipped. The Buddha makes a vision of Akṣobhya’s buddha-field arise and cease
Likewise, Pure Land and Chan have been combined since before Chan as we know it really existed. Some of the early Chan predecessors taught Buddha visualization meditation. And the main lineage of Chan in China today is a mixture of Chan and Pureland.
If these were meant to show that these strands of thought need be separate, it is not convincing.
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There were!
I remember a question regarding the connection/relation of Mahākaccāna to prajñāpāramitā, and Alex commented a bit.
Another interesting question was about how Two Paths to Enlightenment correlate with Alex’ current thesis. The reply to the question was that these Two Paths now seem to be much more variegated and the history of them much more complex than it appeared when Ven. Anālayo and Alex’ debate first took place (a couple of years ago).
I don’t quite remember the question of Charles Shaw, unfortunately…
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I agree largely with this, though I don’t think the situation is as black-and-white as that. If we think of
Even if we allow for something like unto a traditional stemmatic model and view these individual intellectual trajectories within the greater Buddhist tradition like strands of thread issuing forth from a single source, the ever-elusive buddhavacana, the fact that the threads themselves intertwine, entangle, and weave themselves into complex patterns, that wouldn’t take away from their individuality.
That Buddhism is a single, monolithic body of thought (the third fallacy, SN 12.48: sabbamekattan’ti) is the baseline for so many people when they approach Buddhism–or, at best, it’s bifurcated between samatha and vipassanā, though there’s no real bifurcation since there’s only one liberation, and there was never tension between factions, even though discourses scream it out at us… on and on and on. Anyway, yeah, he’s carrying forward (quite predictably, in fact) Gombrich’s theories from the nineties.
I don’t think he’s arguing for complete and total distinction between the strands either, though (the fourth fallacy: sabbaṁ puthuttan’ti). I was late to the lecture and missed most of it (So, thanks to @Sphairos for the upload!), but I still asked the question about the need for sort of reshuffling the paradigmatic frame through which we view the early (or even subsequent) community and the doctrines they espoused. @Alex-Wynne agreed with the need, but he couldn’t say much–understandably, as he’s venturing into something new, and, so , an entire schemata isn’t drawn yet. But these postulations he’s putting forth (which is kind of all they are at this point) are his attempt to do just that, I would say. That’s why I asked, with regard to this redrawing of the map, what the connection was which strung all these disparate lineages together–that is, if all this development and specialization was not all ahetu and apaccaya (yet another fallacy).
He had no answer–again, predictably. Once again, he’s just at the outset. Plus, finding the contrast is always more exciting! Writing about how distinct samatha and vipassanā are is fun; maintaining that diametrical opposition while allowing for their simultaneously being highly complimentary is a bit more tedious–if ultimately more rewarding. And, also, quite necessary: if for no other reason but to stave off certain anticipated, more circumspect responses. 
And, finally, Ven., I think @Alex-Wynne is up for a little debate. Give him some saṁvega!
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But isn’t that only one of the current positions on the spectrum of many? (Particularly, one that has recently been advocated by Dan Stuart).
For instance, there is a very notable school of Rupert Gethin (who in many ways continues the line of Lance Cousins), who is an advocate of a very close reading of the extant “EBT” sources, such in which one tries to understand, experience their emic perspective and thought-world, and which is very careful regarding any alleged mistakes, conflicts, discrepancies in the sources? (A typical approach of this school of thought is: are those really discrepancies/conflicts/mistakes, or we simply don’t understand the matter enough and are projecting our ignorance on the sources?)
I think on the broader scale, most of the fantastic material in Nikayas often serve to de-mistify the reader from the supposed fantastic elements, where unreachable devas prostate to Buddha, incredible Brahmas are bested likewise, where magical creatures and effects can’t reach arahants; so while there is “mythological” elements, they are mentioned either as light embellishments, or to show that Buddha-Dhamma are above such stuff.
On the other hand, there’s an obvious shift in later traditions, not just Mahayana but also in small section of Theravada for increasingly fantastical elements, rather than pure embellishments or demystified expositions, are the content of reach. I think Pure Land is a great example of this, and while as @Vaddha pointed out, Zen/Pure Land union is a thing, there is also a great criticism of such understandings, like Eihei Zenji criticising Amitabha cults, etc.
So yeah, Buddhism is exceptionally pluralist, both in diversity and in adversity, but also in merging of rival sections and even criticism of such reunions. We’ve literally got it all.
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