David Lynch Foundation

According to the DLF web site, David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education is a non-profit organization, established to "fund the implementation of scientifically proven stress-reducing modalities" for "at-risk populations", including U.S. veterans and African war refugees with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), inner city students, American Indians, homeless and incarcerated men.

[6] In 2005, the DLF announced the long-term goal of raising $7 billion in order to establish seven affiliated "Universities of World Peace" in seven different countries, to train students to practice Transcendental Meditation and become "professional peacemakers".

[12] As of 2011, the Foundation's board of advisors included: Russell Simmons, Gary P. Kaplan, William R. Stixrud, Frank Staggers Jr., César Molina, George H. Rutherford, Carmen N’Namdi, Ralph Wolff, Ashley Deans, Linda Handy, and Sarina Grosswald.

[17] That year, Lynch, DLF president John Hagelin, and Maharishi University of Management researcher Fred Travis went on a lecture tour titled "Consciousness, Creativity, and the Brain".

[26] In October the Foundation withdrew a $175,000 pledge to a San Rafael, California, high school after the anti-separation Pacific Justice Institute threatened to sue for violating the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

[27] That year Lynch assigned all of his proceeds from the sale of his book Catching the Big Fish to the DLF[28] and the Foundation sponsored a presentation on the benefits of TM in education at the Harvard Club of Boston.

[29] Natural Health magazine reported in 2007 that the DLF had given $3 million in sponsorship to 20 U.S. schools located in the city of Washington, D.C., and various states including Arizona, New York, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Michigan.

[32] A 2010 Wall Street Journal article reported that since 2005, Lynch had personally "donated half a million dollars to help finance scholarships for 150,000 students who are interested in learning transcendental meditation".

[33] The Jerusalem Post reported in 2009 that the DLF had "provided scholarships to more than 60,000 people interested in practicing Transcendental Meditation throughout the United States, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

"[37] In 2012, The New York Times and other press reported that the DLF had expanded its programs to include other at-risk populations such as "veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and their families, homeless people and incarcerated juveniles and adults".

[43] With the goal of teaching TM to 1 million high risk youth,[44] the Foundation sponsored the 2009 "Change Begins Within" benefit concert, held at Radio City Music Hall and hosted by Lynch and Laura Dern.

[50] The DLF released a compilation titled "Download for Good: Music That Changes The World" in July 2011 via iTunes and then on 21 April 2012 (for Record Store Day[51]) as a box set, featuring 34 artists, including Ben Folds, Donovan, Moby, Iggy Pop, Peter Gabriel, Tom Waits, Maroon 5 and Alanis Morissette, and the box set also includes a bonus track by Sean Lennon and a digital download code for one by Julio Iglesias Jr., as well as a book illustrated by Romio Shrestha and Davel Hamue, and a digital version of the documentary film, Meditation, Creativity, Peace.

[58] In the fall, there were two fundraising events for New York City's first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder that featured celebrities Liv Tyler, Royston Langdon, Sean Lennon,[59] and Hugh Jackman.

The evening, entitled "The Music of David Lynch", launched the DLF's tenth anniversary celebrations, and helped to raise funds to teach Transcendental Meditation to 1,000 at-risk youth in Los Angeles.

[63] On 4 November 2015, the Foundation organised a benefit concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall, "Change Begins Within", "to provide Transcendental Meditation instruction to 10,000 at-risk New Yorkers at no cost".

[73] In 2011, music mogul Russell Simmons announced plans to provide financial support to the David Lynch Foundation to teach TM at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut.

[36] The David Lynch Foundation also produced the video "Saving the Disposable Ones", about the work of Father Gabriel Mejia and the Fundación Hogares Claret, dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating homeless children in Colombia.

[31] According to a 2009 press release on PsychCentral, DLF made plans that year to provide a $2 million grant to fund research on the "effects of the [TM] technique on ADHD and other learning disorders".

DLF-funded program in a Peruvian school