I’ve practiced many forms of meditation over the years. While my current practice doesn’t include it much, I’d like to offer my experience with Transcendental Meditation™ and why it’s such a great “beginner” meditation for a certain kind of person (and definitely was for me).

First let’s make fun of Transcendental Meditation™ and the ™ which I went through the “proper channels” and paid $$$ to learn. It smacks of grift at best and Scientology at worst—it’s “just” basic mantra meditation—but I’ll argue that even this is part of why it works for some.

Just as religious and spiritual practices the world over have had to incorporate customs of the local heathen, the genius of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation™ is that it properly judged the religion of America/Americanized countries, not as Christianity, but as Money.

The surest way that Americans express their values is by buying things and the amount they pay is the measure of their commitment. Paying for TM™, getting your own secret mantra, celebrity marketing, what better way for a spiritual practice to find its purchase in the USA?

And this is another reason why TM™ appeals particularly well to productivity-obsessed American artists/entrepreneurs: When you look up the list of celebrities who espouse TM™’s virtues, it’s like the who’s who of the most successful and most creative people ever.

Some Transcendental Meditation™ celebrities: The Beatles, Oprah, David Lynch, Jerry Seinfeld, Russell Simmons, Howard Stern, Tom Hanks, Mick Jagger, Ellen DeGeneres, Clint Eastwood—

So, $$$, fame, creative excellence. But what about the TM™ practice itself?

My anecdotal experience is that many Driven™ people, claiming a strong desire to build great structures/make great art/change the world, have a pretty loud, not too helpful internal dialogue going. This internal dialogue is addressed in a pretty elegant way by mantra meditation.

My understanding of how TM™ worked well as a beginner practice for someone like me goes like this:

The mind thinks, like the heart beats. That’s what it does.

Rather than “stop thinking” (unhelpful) or “simply observe” (advanced/huh?), TM™ provides a sound for the mind to DO.

While most meditation instruction is simple but a mindfuck (what do you mean “notice”?), mantra meditation instruction is actually simple. Just keep your eyes closed and keep making the sound. When you realize you’ve stopped making the sound, just make the sound again. That’s it!

Most people I introduce to TM™ have a similar experience. The short version is “I feel like I just meditated.” This is helpful and positive, again, for a certain type of person.

I rarely use it now, I’m doing other practices, but TM™ was a super important leg of this journey.

Of course, eventually you’ll need to separate meditation from any and all notions of “productivity” or “improvement” or even “doing,” but to start with, if you’re in this culture and have had trouble connecting with meditation, TM™ might be the best practice to start with.

If you want a mantra to play with, I hear you can use the sound “rum” and it works pretty good.

And no, I’m not telling you my mantra. You kidding me? I paid $600 for that shit!