How a TM Course Worked in New York: Format, Fees and History

The five-step format a New York center used to teach Transcendental Meditation to companies, what it cost in 2014, and where to look for courses today.

A New York professional who learned Transcendental Meditation through work in 2014 spent four days in a row with a teacher, came back for refresher sessions, and paid $960 or $1,200 for it, depending on where the course was held. This article sets out that format and its 2014 prices as history. The Manhattan Business Review does not run or sell courses, and the prices below are not current.

The course was run by the Center for Leadership Performance, a New York nonprofit that taught TM to companies with the David Lynch Foundation from an office on East 45th Street in Midtown. This address was its course page. Copies saved by the Internet Archive in 2014, 2018 and 2022 show almost no change in the course it described.

The first phase: five steps

The center taught TM in three phases. The first was a course of five steps.

Step one was an introductory talk of about an hour. It covered what the technique is, how teachers say it works, and a summary of the research the organization relied on.

Step two was the only one-to-one session: about 90 minutes alone with a certified teacher, who gave the student a mantra and showed how to use it.

Steps three, four and five were follow-up classes of about 75 minutes each. Their purpose was to check that each student was practicing the way they had been taught. The center required steps two to five to fall on consecutive days, so most of the course took four days in a row.

Refreshers and follow-up

The second phase was four refresher sessions of about 45 minutes each, set at times that suited the company. The third phase had no end date: the center offered free follow-up sessions and talks for life at its offices.

Two ways to take it

The 2014 fees page offered two formats. An individual could join a course at the center’s New York office alongside people from other businesses. A company could instead hold the course on its own premises for its staff. Private one-to-one teaching, at the office or at the client’s location, cost extra.

What it cost in 2014

In October 2014 the individual course cost $960 a person and the company course cost $1,200 a person. The center said a share of every fee paid for free teaching through the David Lynch Foundation, which runs programs for students, veterans and survivors of domestic violence.

Reporters saw the same figures. A Financial Times column in July 2014 cited the $960 fee. In March 2014 CNNMoney described the foundation’s course as a $1,000 intensive and quoted Bob Roth, then the foundation’s executive director, as saying that 30 or 40 companies were now interested in its corporate program, up from one or two two years before.

Some employers shared the cost. Bridgewater Associates, the hedge fund founded by Ray Dalio, paid half of its employees’ course fees, according to the Financial Times in 2014. Business Insider reported in 2016 that about 500 Bridgewater employees had been trained over eight years.

The same course elsewhere

The format has stayed close to this shape. A course page run today by Summit with the David Lynch Foundation, for students in Los Angeles and New York, lists an introductory talk and then four consecutive days: 90 minutes of one-to-one teaching on the first day and group sessions of 75 minutes on each of the next three. It also offers follow-up for life through the foundation and the TM organization.

Where to look today

Readers who want to take a course now should check the David Lynch Foundation and TM.org, which list current courses and fees. We do not state a current price because we cannot confirm one.

We could not confirm that the Center for Leadership Performance still runs under that name. The foundation’s own staff page says Bob Roth, its chief executive, now directs an Institute of Mental Health and Resilience that brings meditation to large companies and government bodies. We have not found a statement that the institute replaced the center.

For a company weighing the cost, our page on who pays when staff learn to meditate collects the payment models reported over the years.

This page is general information, not medical advice. The Manhattan Business Review is not affiliated with the David Lynch Foundation or any Transcendental Meditation organization, and it does not sell courses. Transcendental Meditation and TM are trademarks of their owners.