Transcendental Meditation & David Lynch

I recently finished reading a book called Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by the brilliant director David Lynch. As well as describing the creative processes of movie-making he talks about how Transcendental Mediation has hugely improved his life, so much that he’s launched a Foundation to teach TM to those in need, for free.

After researching about TM I was annoyed to find that it’s usually very costly to learn and apparently ‘you can’t learn it through a book’. Regardless I found a site online that teaches you the essence of TM for a small cost and I must say I’m having good results with it. Although I’ve tried meditation before I never really quite ‘got it’, but this method seems different and doing it makes me feel incredibly chilled out

Anyone else have experience with TM? Any thoughts around this whole subject are welcome.

I practice TM but not as intensely as he does. It's a combination of the Knowledge that TM offers and self-hypnosis, it's quite a potent blend, with it you can achieve many things and program your mind to do almost anything. It's important to well understand TM, though, because some of it's teachings can be misinterpreted.

What he is trying to accomplish is great, I think more people should be doing this, it really awakens the mind. As soon as you sit down and start listening to your thoughts and programming your subconscious mind, when you discover the power it has, you become enlightened.

reply to post by Internet Explorer


One thing I have problems with his endeavor is that there already exists such means in various traditional meditation practices based on Hindu's Yoga, Zen meditation, and Chinese Chi Kung. So, he is going to put a new age spin on his experience as if he had discovered something new...

Thanks for replies

Originally posted by ChiForce
One thing I have problems with his endeavor is that there already exists such means in various traditional meditation practices based on Hindu's Yoga, Zen meditation, and Chinese Chi Kung. So, he is going to put a new age spin on his experience as if he had discovered something new...

Yes I've read that essentially TM is nothing new - which is why I question paying hundreds or thousands to do a course. What advantages does it give you?

Thought I would share the basic technique of TM, from what I've learned.

Usually meditation requires you to sit in some bone-crunching lotus position, but this doesn't need that.

The Technique
1. Make yourself comfortable, sitting is fine but lying down isn't recommended apparantly. Preferably somewhere silent.

2. Close your eyes and take a few deep & slow breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Try to relax any obvious tension you might have, in your arms or legs or whatever. Do this for about a minute and try to 'chillax' as much as you can.

3.This is the important part. TM is basically mantra meditation (but the particular mantra you use doesn't really matter IMO) Here are the mantra's used by the people who teach TM, it's based on your age: minet.org...

4. So with your eyes closed, repeat your mantra over and over again. Not out loud though, just try and 'visualise' the word in your mind. The hardest part are the errant thoughts that will occur, you WILL start thinking about something else. Don't worry if you do, just reassert the word in your mind. Be relaxed about the whole thing, TM is quite a simple process (but often your mind wander off to some unrelated bull#it in my experience)

5. Keep doing this for 15 - 20 minutes. Keep repeating that word, focus on that word. No other thoughts matter in this particular moment - there is nothing you urgently need to think about!

Do this twice a day, morning and afternoon (if possible) and see what happens. In my experience it seems to temporarily quieten a part of your mind down, and what is left is maybe a wee bit indescribable. Results differ.

Honestly I would recommend it.

cheers!

To corroborate what IE posted:

Herbert Benson, M.D. began his studies at Harvard of the "Relaxation Response" with financial support from the TM people, associates of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his assorted enterprises. That was about 40 years ago. What Benson discovered was that the specific mantra was irrelevant to the physiology, so long as the mantra was something the meditator was comfortable with.

Here is a video of Benson discussing his latest book, last summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts:

www.youtube.com...

also available on

forum-network.org...

The video is about 40 minutes long. A short training occurs from about 27:15 minutes to about 31:10. The training is edited for time, so pauses are edited out, but I think it conveys the idea very effectively.

At the end of the training, Benson mentions the "recommended dose" (once or twice a day for 10-20 minutes), which is similar to the 20 minutes twice daily for TM mentioned by David Lynch in the OP video, and IE's summary of the method.

During the video, Benson describes the rationale of choosing your own mantra, rather than having one assigned to you. Good find by IE for the essential arbitrariness of the TM recommendation about that.

The whole video is really quite good, IMO. There is some real science behind the recommendation to do this sort of thing, and the video efficiently briefs you if you are unfamiliar with these results.

One important point is that mantra meditation is not the only kind of meditation, and meditation is not the only kind of activity which elicits the relaxation response, which is pretty much what carries the benefit (or opens you up to receive other benefits) of meditation. However, mantra meditation is probably the easiest method to teach to somebody who has never meditated before, or who has had difficulty with other methods.

Thank you for posting that video, very interesting. Indeed the particular word or phrase you use seems to be irrelevant to the process.

It1s irrelevant for quieting your mind but their claim is that various active and passive Hindu deities principles will help you. I meditated for 31 years and had many fantastic experiences. I was never completely assimilate the cult mentality that goes behind with it though - go by trial and error. I would check out those that would be appropriate for your age according to the anti-TM minet site.
As for me, I think the TM Sidhi technique works better. That is also simple and given on the ex-TM sites. The sutras come Patanjali - a renowned Yogic researcher in an early time in India. It is the instructions to the technique that are most well designed. You should never strive to keep your back straight, you can let your head lolling up and down or gently sideways as it pleases. If you put the slightest effort to concentrating - which is great in other techniques - it will not work as well as it should.

Plac cell phones away or turn them off. Same for wiFi. Microwaves mess with your mind so you are kindathrown back on the surface by them.
Always spend a couple of inutes at the least coming out of it otherwise the outer world is too sharp.
Practice with earplugs if you may have sudden noises niterrupting your dig for relaxation.

It is OK to sleep for brief intervals too. It will be different with sitting.

Modern teachers do not tell you this but it was among the first instructions I got from my teacher who was at one time working with Maharishi in the sixties.

I only do the Sidhi Sutras myself these days - something changed in the atmosphere of the Earth and it is far easies to relax with that. Watch how your breathing changes - that is the key.

And take their explanations with a grain of salt. Your Highest Inner Power may want you to start meditation now. Respect that. Also, if you are sick, meditate more rounds. Cut your program if you are too busy.

The flying suta will not make you fly but it is a good sutra, very deep experience comes with it. You may twitch or jump a little though. Ask me, I had years of practice alone and in groups.