Is Transcendental Meditation a Scam?

>> and Jobs ultimately found solace in Zen Buddhism. Both succumbed to cancer. In Jobs’ case, a faith in Western medicine would have certainly served him better.<<

Just to be clear, Zen (or any other type of Buddhism) has nothing against modern or old medicine, it's just a way of dealing with the would we live in. Maybe Jobs had his reasons for not liking modern medicine but Zen wasn't one of them I'm pretty sure.

Meditations like TM are designed to self hypnotise or put yourself into a trance like state and therefore forget your worries for a bit (like drinking/drugs et al). This is all 'small mind' work. Buddhist meditation, particularly Zen is more about the 'Big Mind', that is, trying to get 'out of your head' and live in the 'real world'. Zen meditation is the _practice_ of being in the 'now' and not living with delusive thoughts which bring on depression/anxiety. When you get up from your meditation session you should then go on to try and live in this state of concentration/awareness. The more you practice, the better you get. When you work, just work, when you eat, just eat etc. It's only our small mind thoughts about future or past that make our daily tasks seem unbearable.

This is a big topic but basically, while TM may be beneficial to some, charging for it is a scam IMHO.