[ptc]

Perhaps not as scientifically minded, I still think Alan Watts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts) and his accompanying lectures (e.g. http://archive.org/details/BuddhismAsDialogue) are a great introduction to eastern philosophy from a westerner's perspective.

[jonhendry]

Zen and the Brain by James Austin (MIT Press) is also good. The author is an emeritus professor of neuroscience, who started doing Zen during the 60s while he was working in Japan.

It's a huge, dense book, about 900 pages.

[gdubs]

The iOS app containing a large number of his talks, while pricey, is very good.