Who Pays When Staff Learn to Meditate? Models From New York

How employers and staff have shared the cost of meditation courses, with dated examples from New York and Bridgewater Associates, 2008 to 2017.

When a company decides it wants staff to learn a taught meditation practice such as Transcendental Meditation, the first practical question is who pays for the course. Reporting from 2014 to 2017, and the course pages that once stood on this website, show several answers. Each example below is dated. Prices have changed since, and the Manhattan Business Review does not sell courses; current fees are listed by the David Lynch Foundation and TM.org.

The employer pays half

The best-known model came from Bridgewater Associates, the hedge fund founded by Ray Dalio. Business Insider reported in 2016 that Dalio brought TM to the firm about eight years earlier, around 2008, through teachers from the David Lynch Foundation. Dalio’s first offer was to repay half of each employee’s roughly $1,000 fee out of his own pocket; the firm later made it a formal plan. The Financial Times reported in July 2014 that Bridgewater paid half of its employees’ fees, and Dalio himself told Business Insider in February 2014 that he offered to cover half the cost for staff who learned from a teacher.

The arrangement lasted. By 2016, Business Insider said, about 500 Bridgewater employees had learned TM over eight years.

The company books a course on site

The Center for Leadership Performance, which ran this website until about 2022, offered companies a course held at their own offices. In October 2014 that cost $1,200 a person. The fee covered the full course and four refresher sessions set at times that suited the company, with free follow-up for life afterward. The company handled the cost, and staff did not need to travel.

Staff join an open course

The same center ran individual courses at its New York office, where people from different firms learned together. In October 2014 that cost $960 a person. The Financial Times cited the same $960 figure that July. An employer could pay that fee for an employee, or reimburse part of it, without arranging a course on site. Private one-to-one teaching was available for an extra charge.

In March 2014 CNNMoney described the David Lynch Foundation’s course for companies as a $1,000 intensive.

Part of the fee pays for others

Under the center’s model, a share of every course fee went to the David Lynch Foundation’s free programs for students, veterans with post-traumatic stress and women who had survived domestic violence. For an employer, that meant part of the spending supported free teaching elsewhere. Business Insider reported in 2016 that Dalio had given the foundation about $20 million over a decade, about a fifth of its funding.

A donor covers the cost

Some events were free to the people who came. The town hall on meditation for business leaders held at the Harold Pratt House on February 28, 2017, charged no entry, because a single donor, the investment manager Spencer B. Haber, paid for it. That covered an evening of talks, not a course.

Questions to settle before paying

A company comparing these models should ask the teaching organization for its current fee per person, whether there is a lower rate for a group held on site, what refresher sessions and follow-up the fee includes, and whether any payment plan or reduced fee applies. It should also decide in advance whether the benefit is open to every employee or only some, and whether repayment is expected if someone leaves soon after.

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.