David Lynch about the benefits of meditation

On the 3rd Annual Gala of the David Lynch Foundation “Change Begins Within” on december 3rd, 2011, David Lynch gave a short lecture about the benefits of a regular practice of Transcendental Meditation:

Video transcription:

Tonight they want me to talk about this tree I painted. It’s not a sculpture of the cheese that Russell was talking about.

This tree represents a phrase that Maharishi used. He used it to describe Transcendental Meditation and its benefits. And the simple little phrase goes like this: “water the root and enjoy the fruit”.

I’d like to say it again: “water the root and enjoy the fruit”.

This tree you’re looking at, is a tree glowing with perfection having had its roots watered very well.

But if you imagine this tree without the glow, without the fruit, and take a bunch of the leaves and turn them yellow, and another bunch of leaves turn them brown, weaken the branches and have them bend...this is the way so many of us find ourselves today.

And unfortunately, most of the cures people come up with today are surface cures.

And surface cures do not address the big problem. And surface cures are like tending to this tree on the level of the leaves.

Trying to get the yellow leaves green again, the brown leaves yellow and then green again.

And maybe we get a yellow leaf green, but by the time we do, six or seven healthy leaves have turned yellow or brown behind this.

The experienced gardener, they say, doesn’t worry about working on the level of the leaves nor the branches. The experienced gardener waters the root, and gets nourishment to the root. And automatically the tree comes up to perfection.

There are so many meditators here tonight, but for those of you who don’t know, “transcending” is for the individual “watering the root”.

Transcending is the experience that is missing from today’s lives. Transcending means experiencing the deepest level of life. The level of the life at the base of all matter and all mind. And it’s like an ocean, an ocean of pure, wide awake, unbounded consciousness. And this consciousness within has qualities. It’s unbounded intelligence, creativity, happiness known as bliss, love, energy, power and peace. And it’s all positive. There’s no negativity in this ocean, just as there is no darkness in the brightest light.

Transcendental Meditation is a mental technique, an ancient form of meditation revived for this time by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

With Transcendental Meditation you get a mantra and learn how to use it. A mantra is a very specific sound vibration thought. You can look at the mantra as a law of nature designed to do a specific thing. And this mantra turns the awareness within. Instead of being pointed out, out, out …Its now pointed within, within, within. And you naturally, easily, and effortlessly dive, from subtler levels of mind and intellect.

Why is it natural? Because each deeper level of mind and intellect has more happiness, and the happiness is like a magnet, it pulls us within. And at the border of intellect you transcend, and you experience that big ocean, that treasury within. And every time you experience it, you infuse some. So you begin to expand whatever consciousness you had to begin with. Every human being has consciousness, but not every human being has the same amount.

The potential for each one of us glorious human beings is infinite, unbounded consciousness. The side effect of expanding consciousness is: “negativity begins to recede”. Just like in a dark room if you have a light ready on a dimmer switch and you begin to ramp that light up, darkness starts to go. And when that light is full there is no darkness. So you can see things like stress, traumatic-stress, anxiety, tensions, sorrow, depression, hate, anger, bitter selfish anger, rage, fears... start to lift away, and you work in more and more freedom as this heavy weight of negativity lifts, and all positive welling up  from within.

In brain research on the EEG machine, when someone truly transcends a glorious thing is seen... the full brain lights up on the EEG machine, total brain coherence they call it.

It’s the only experience in life, transcending, that does this. Any other thing utilizes just a small part of the brain they say. One little small part for singing, another little small part maybe for mathematics, some small part for painting a picture. Here is an experience that brings the whole brain into concert, full brain engaged. It shows you the beautiful relationship between the human being and this field within, that ocean of consciousness.

So “watering the root” is transcending for the human being. And transcending leads to the full potential of the human being which is called “enlightenment”. Enlightenment is total fulfillment, total liberation, a state described as more than the most. Zero negativity, zero suffering. And on the way to enlightenment, if you stay regular, things just get better and better and better.

Maybe the events of our lives will stay the same. But those positive events will get more and more enjoyable, and those not so positive things you'll go through them easier and easier. Mankind was not meant to suffer. Bliss is our nature. The individual is cosmic. Don’t forget that. “Change begins within”, “Water the root and enjoy the fruit”. Thank you for listening.

For more information on the David Lynch Foundation please visit http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/

For more information on how to learn the Transcendental Meditation technique please visit http://www.tm.org/