What do I have in common with Ellen DeGeneres, Russell Brand, Oprah, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Russell Simmons? Probably not all that much, but... we all practice TM, Transcendental Meditation.
We have virtually nothing in common in terms of personal style, the art we attempt, or, for all I know, our politics. Our only common denominator is that we each do TM. I learned in 1976, a few years after The Beatles. Paul McCartney and Ringo still meditate, and so do I.
I've kept it up all these years for a very simple reason: TM is incredibly easy. You don't have to "try," you don't have to "not think anything," you don't have to "quiet your mind." You can do it on a plane, in a car (assuming you're not driving), on a bus or a train. I've meditated on a New York subway.
If you think you can't meditate, TM may be perfect for you. For me, my twice-daily, 20-minute meditations are like taking welcome mini-vacations. Most of us go on vacations to recharge, rest, or get away from the busy-ness of our lives. Sadly, vacations often fail us in this way. But when I finish TM, I'm recharged and ready to take on my day. On a film or TV set, or in rehearsal for a play, meditating after lunch helps me get through the rest of what's usually an incredibly high-pressure work day.
So when the brilliant director David Lynch started the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) to teach meditation in schools, prisons, and to returning soldiers with PTSD, it was a natural fit for me to get involved. The scientific research is amazing on TM: how it literally melts away stress in all the forms in which science understands that the body stores stress. Blood pressure decreases, reaction time improves, substance abuse decreases, anxiety decreases -- with meditation, not medication. Schools that use DLF to make TM available to students and teachers report big drops in absenteeism and big upticks in grades. Maybe more important, students and teachers say that their school day flies by and is much less stressful.
Returning vets with PTSD who learn TM show greatly reduced states of anxiety. Prisoners who do TM are dramatically less liable to become violent and they show a major statistical tendency to stay out of prison once they're released. In the U.S., our biggest problem with "corrections" is that released prisoners usually commit a new crime and get sent back to prison. The cost to society of this revolving door of inmates is astronomical. TM stops this process. Imagine prisons getting emptier because a prisoner has actually been rehabilitated! What a concept.
I'm proud to sit on the board of DLF. As David loves to say, "Change begins within." We can't create peace in our world or in the world, if we don't carry a measure of peace around inside of us.
Sound too woo-woo for you? Ask Clint Eastwood. Ask Laura Dern. Ask Howard Stern. Or Jerry Seinfeld. They've all been doing TM for decades.
A persistent myth about artists is that we need to exhaust ourselves or lead wildly disordered lives in order to be creative. In reality, to succeed over a lifetime in the stressful entertainment world, we need tools to keep us rested so we can work at the high level expected of us, under usually grueling schedules.
TM isn't a system of thought or a philosophy. It was brought to the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an Indian physicist who became a meditation teacher. There are no required meetings, no membership dues, no tithing, no worshipped leader. Everyone pays a fee to learn TM, but that initial payment is all you'll ever have to fork over. After that, you can have your meditation "checked" with a TM teacher anywhere in the world for as long as you live, without charge.
DLF makes meditation available for free to the populations I mentioned. Russell Brand, Ellen DeGeneres, David Lynch, and Russell Simmons will be appearing at a gala "Change Begins Within" event on Saturday, Dec. 3 at the Los Angeles County Art Museum. I'll be there, too.
To find out more about DLF, or to learn TM yourself, check out davidlynchfoundation.org and tm.org. I'm on Twitter at @stephencollins.
Jeanne Ball: Oprah's Next Chapter: Meditation -- In 'America's Most Unusual Town'
Willow Dea: Habit #2: Dynamic State Training
Further, true transcendence would imply everybody is benefited.
On a more personal level, they have published research on the physiological correlates of what TMers call "pure consciousness," or "transcendental consciousness," during TM practice, which is held to be the ultimate state of rest for the human nervous system.
There are also studies showing that the EEG pattern found during pure consciousness in TM practice starts to show up more and more outside of TM practice over the years and decades of practice.
As I said, your milage may vary as to whether you find this research convincing or relevant, but it DOES exist.
Research on the physiological correlates of pure consciousness found during TM practice:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7045911
Breath suspension during the transcendental meditation technique.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10512549
Pure consciousness: distinct phenomenological and physiological correlates of "consciousness itself".
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9009807
Autonomic patterns during respiratory suspensions: possible markers of Transcendental Consciousness.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10487785
Autonomic and EEG patterns during eyes-closed rest and transcendental meditation (TM) practice: the basis for a neural model of TM practice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19862565
A self-referential default brain state: patterns of coherence, power, and eLORETA sources during eyes-closed rest and Transcendental Meditation practice.
Research on the physiological correlates of the stabilization of pure consciousness outside of meditation in long-term TM meditators:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12406612
Patterns of EEG coherence, power, and contingent negative variation characterize the integration of transcendental and waking states.
http://www.tm.org/american-psychological-association
Abstract for the 2007 Conference of the American Psychological Association
Brain Integration Scale: Corroborating Language-based 
Instruments of Post-conventional Development
Research on the physiological correlates of the stabilization of pure consciousness outside of meditation in non-meditators:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2009.01007.x/full
Higher psycho-physiological refinement in world-class Norwegian athletes: brain measures of performance capacity
I know when I'm really offending people. All I have to do is say I'd like to find a job.
Is that description a speculative assumption? Who knows for certain? No matter.... What matters is that regular practice of TM naturally and progressively enhances the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual qualities of one's life.
Thanks, Steve Collins, for helping to make TM available to all! Enjoy!
Can you share any specific ways that this type of meditation is different or more beneficial than any others, or do I need to write a check first?
A Meta-Analysis conducted at Stanford University investigated 146 separate studies on the effectiveness of any mental technique that had been considered in any published research and compared the effectiveness of those technologies to the effectiveness of TM. This list of 146 studies included comparing TM to biofeedback, progressive muscle relaxation, mindfulness, relaxation response, and many other mental techniques. TM was found to be twice as effective as any other mental technique in reducing anxiety and if only rigorous research was considered then TM was found to be 3 to 4 times as effective in reducing anxiety than any other mental technique. In addition, not one of the other techniques significantly reduced anxiety in comparison to a placebo.
Eppley K, Abrams A, Shear J. Differential effects of relaxation techniques on trait anxiety: a meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology 1989 45(6):957-974
By Don Coles
OTOH, TM is extremely effective in treating PTSD, and there is no reason why you can't sit down and practice TM while bullets are whizzing by overhead.
I've meditated while an F-111 was close enough to me that my army helmet was blown 30 feet through the air when the engine was started. I could feel the heat through my chemical warfare gear, and yet my meditation was still easy and effortless. Fortunately for my ears, I *was* wearing earplugs!
TM is about effortless transcending -- one experiences the deepest, most silent and peaceful level of the mind, transcendental consciousness or samadhi, and in the most simple, innocent way without concentration or difficulty. Buddhism is great and TM fulfills the edicts of Buddhism very spontaneously and naturally. There is a tuition to sustain the teachers and organization, but if one cannot afford the tuition, then the sliding scale or scholarships come into play. Tens of thousands of people have learned TM for free from the worldwide TM organization over the past year alone -- among them, thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns throughout Asia: http://www.tm.org/blog/meditation/buddhist-monks/
When people pay their tuition for TM, they are supporting this benevolent endeavor, helping bring effective meditation to inner city school kids, Native Americans, prison inmates, the homeless, and other groups such as the monks who learn for free.
Anyways nice to have this in common with you an thanks for your commitment to DLF and keep UP the great work!
people can't even take a wall down the damn street without constantly looking
down at their damn phone.
since there wasn't information on the practice of tm is there a website that you would recommend?
happiness,
pc