Filmmaker David Lynch Launches Foundation
to Bring the Transcendental Meditation Program
to the Classroom

America’s students and teachers now have a new ally—David Lynch.

On July 21, the award-winning filmmaker will launch the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, dedicated to bringing the benefits of the stress-reducing, health-promoting Transcendental Meditation program to students, teachers, and parents (www.DavidLynchFoundation.com).

After he saw the serene faces of children deep in their practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique at an inner-city Detroit school, watched teens who meditate at a school in Iowa act in a play with great poise and skill, and heard a college student talk frankly about how daily practice of the TM technique had brought down his high blood pressure and saved him from a life of drugs, the celebrated filmmaker knew he had to do something “big and bold” for America’s students.

Mr. Lynch, who is in the midst of directing his new film, Inland Empire, says his Foundation aims at helping students of all ages, nationalities, and religions learn better, handle stress better, and “know themselves” better through the Transcendental Meditation program. Mr. Lynch believes that in this way his Foundation will help to promote a strong basis for a healthier, more harmonious, and peaceful world.

 “The Transcendental Meditation technique has been learned by tens of thousand of students in schools, colleges, and universities all over the country. There is also extensive published research to document the technique’s wide-ranging health benefits for mind, body, and society. I have started this Foundation to ensure that every child in America who wants to meditate can learn,” Mr. Lynch says.

Dr. John Hagelin and his staff at the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy have been working very closely with Mr. Lynch this year to establish the David Lynch Foundation. To promote the goals of the Foundation and to build up its capital, Mr. Lynch and Dr. Hagelin have launched a national tour of college campuses, also visiting leading philanthropists, celebrities, and entrepreneurs across the country to secure their support for the Foundation and its educational initiatives.

The David Lynch Foundation will fund in-school TM programs—and support scientific research on the effects of the technique—for developing a student’s brain potential, improving academic performance, and helping students with learning disabilities, high blood pressure, and other stress-related disorders, such as anxiety, depression, drug abuse, etc.

“Our schools are under enormous pressure to cram as much information as quickly as possible into a student’s brain. But the sheer amount of information is exploding so fast that students are physically incapable of absorbing all that information and putting it to use. And that is why the problem of stress has become so all-pervasive in our schools,” Mr. Lynch says.

Mr. Lynch says the TM program is the ideal antidote. “The Transcendental Meditation program makes it much easier for students for learn and teachers to teach,” Lynch says. “It can be a huge help for our schools.”

Mr. Lynch has been practicing the TM technique for 32 years.

Meditating students in Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Fairfield, Iowa