Lynch meditates on violence

Director David Lynch, on a five-day visit to Israel to encourage transcendental meditation, met Monday with Israeli President Shimon Peres.

The 61-year-old filmmaker, whose credits include “The Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet” and “Mullholland Dr.,” is visiting Israel to encourage transcendental meditation as a new approach to eliminating violence in schools and creating a peaceful world.

“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.”