Austin — a neurologist and Zen practitioner — undertook the first comprehensive attempt to map the neurophysiological correlates of Zen meditation states, integrating decades of clinical neuroscience with first-person contemplative practice. The book argues that Zen training produces specific, empirically investigable changes in brain function, and that taking these changes seriously requires neither mystification nor reductive dismissal: the states are real, they have measurable neural correlates, and they disclose aspects of mind that standard cognitive science does not reach.
OM’s research invokes Austin alongside Varela and Thompson as contributors to a neurophenomenological tradition that takes consciousness alteration seriously as an empirical domain rather than a marginal curiosity. For the Cognitive Security research program, Austin’s work is directly relevant: if Zen practice can be shown to produce genuine changes in cognitive function — increased attentional stability, reduced reactivity, expanded perceptual scope — then the argument that contemplative and somatic practices constitute a practical cognitive security technology gains empirical grounding.
Source: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262511384/zen-and-the-brain/