"Contemporary writers are much easier to get through: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Daniel Goleman, and Mark Epstein, to name a few. Then there's the 800-lb. (actually, 800-page) gorilla of the literature: _Zen and the Brain_ by James H. Austin, M.D., a neurologist who also took extensive Zen training."
Oddly enough Epstein's "Thoughts Without a Thinker" fell into my hands yesterday and I've been reading it since. It's a bit cursory, but otherwise, pretty much the kind of thing I'm looking for. Thanks for the other refs.
Frankly, I find eastern philosophy/psychology much more interesting, deep, and thorough than western flavors. It seems to me that only in the twentieth century did western psychology catch up with the east, and even now, the trend is to draw away from meditational/talk therapy and to use drugs instead. A pity.
Joanna