ABOUT
THE BOOK
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR
INTERVIEW
EXCERPT
FROM
ZEN AND THE BRAIN
ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
PRAISE FOR
ZEN AND THE
BRAIN
"In this monumental work, the author marshals the evidence
from neuroscience to help clarify which brain mechanisms
underlie the subjective states of Zen, and employs Zen to
'illuminate' how the brain 'works' in various states of
consciousness. By 'monumental' I refer not merely to the
size but to the breadth and depth of coverage of the
book."
-- George Adelman, Editor of The Encyclopedia of Neuroscience
"Austin, by discovering the common roots of Zen and neuroscience, is able to explain the experiential qualities of events and provide testable hypotheses for the experience on philosophical enlightenment. This is a major series of coherent essays of philosophy and neuroscience, reminiscent of the works of Huxley and Churchland, but unique in content and scope."
-- Andrew Kertesz, Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, St. Joseph's Health Centre, Canada
"Thanks to the unprecedented developments of the neurosciences in recent years, we now possess (and in most cases enjoy) an enormous amount of new information about the nervous system and the human brain. However, the progress of science would be sterile without an effort of synthesis aimed at putting together the results of previous work in order to understand the crucial element of the puzzle: the nature of consciousness. This is what Austin has done in his remarkable book and we should be all grateful to him for this achievement."
-- Francois Boller, M.D., PhD., Professor of Neurology, Director, INSERM Unit 324, Centre Paul Broca, Paris, France
"Currently, to many scientists reductionism means fractionization rather than synthesis. In the last several decades, neuroscientists have increasingly fractionated the brain, but the mind-brain dichotomy remains to be resolved. James H. Austin's book Zen and the Brain attempts such a synthesis. Although he has not reduced this dichotomy to a unity, he has courageously started us on the road."
-- Kenneth M. Heilman M.D., The James E. Rooks Jr. Professor of Neurology, University of Florida College of Medicine