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Celebrated American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor, David Lynch, who is undoubtedly considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, passed away in January 2025. Often considered a "visionary," Lynch's works are profound, deep, and moving, with a surrealist and experimental quality. In a 2014 interview with The Talks, Lynch gave his views on the powers of meditation.
"It was the idea that the human being can gain enlightenment," he said.
David Lynch is best known for his movies Eraserhead (1977), Blue Velvet (1986), and Mulholland Drive (2001). He is also famous for the ABC series Twin Peaks (1990–1991), for which he was awarded five Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
David Lynch was an avid advocate of Transcendental Meditation
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In an interview with The Talks in 2014, Lynch discussed his meditation practice. He spoke about how he picked it up in 1973 and how it changed his view on enlightenment.
" It was driving me crazy, because you hear we only use five or ten percent of our brains. What is the other part for? How do you get more and more and what is the most you can get? A lot of people said meditation is like jogging or like lying in the sun on the beach," he said.
He also commented on how meditation changed him, saying:
"I noticed I did have an anger. Many people have anger and I was one of them. People direct anger at certain people they can get away with - I would take it out on my first wife."
According to the acclaimed director, when people start meditating, they don't notice the changes as soon as others around them do.
How has meditation influenced David Lynch's work?
The director also discussed how meditation has influenced his art. According to him, meditation can help generate ideas and also aid in the development of intuition, which is one of the most valuable tools for any artist.
"You can catch ideas at a deeper level when you start meditating. Intuition grows, and intuition is the number one tool for an artist – feeling and thinking combined. When you are working on a painting, it’s like you know, and you enjoy 'the doing' so much. It’s the same way with films," he said.
Commenting on how an idea for a movie takes shape for him, Lynch told the outlet:
"I always say ideas drive the boat. Ideas are a huge, huge blessing. That's the thing you try to catch – an idea that you fall in love with. Every time that I have made a film that's not from a book or somebody else's screenplay, it happens the same way."
David Lynch was a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation. He was initiated into the practice in 1973 and had been an advocate for it until his passing in January 2025.
With a career spanning over five decades, David Lynch has been honored with numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2006 and the Academy Honorary Award in 2019.
