David Lynch Preaches Meditation In Israel

David Lynch, on a five-day visit to Israel to encourage transcendental meditation, met with Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres.

"Lynch is one of the greatest directors of our generation and a giant artist on his own, and it is a great honor for the state of Israel to host you and listen to you," Peres said Monday. "The whole of Israel recognizes your work and is proud to host you."

The 61-year-old director, who has received Oscar nominations for "The Elephant Man," "Blue Velvet" and "Mullholland Drive," is visiting Israel to encourage transcendental meditation as a new approach to eliminating violence in schools and creating a peaceful world.

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"Real peace is not just the absence of war, but the absence of all suffering, all negativity," Lynch said at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem. "Change comes from within. From the first meditation, boom, you're there."

Lynch has been meditating for more than 30 years.

He started the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace to promote transcendental meditation as a way to aid students in violence-ridden schools and bring about world harmony.

With meditation, Lynch said, the "black cloud of negativity dissolves."

Meditation can aid not only schoolchildren, but also bring tranquility to troubled regions of the world, he said.

"The experienced gardener doesn't worry about the leaves. Get at (the problem) from its roots," he said. "A peace on the surface -- it doesn't address the seeds of war ... it's a 'peace' of paper."

Lynch said if he had to choose between meditation and filmmaking, meditation would win.
By Regan E. Doherty