I tried to look up more info about it but it seems like to learn anything, one has to take some $1500 course. Can you summarize how it differs from the standard meditation (i.e. zen meditation)?
Zen meditation isn't really "the standard meditation", American culture just has an infatuation with Zen because the Beats and Hippies drew a lot of attention to the San Francisco Zen Center at the right time, while otherwise Buddhism and Hinduism have mostly stayed in immigrant communities. (I don't know enough about the Hare Krishnas to say anything either way.)
AFAIK, Hare krishnas do not practice "raja yoga" the Hindu school of philosophy that deals with "Yoga" and "meditation" as people know of it popularly. Hare krishnas practice the "Bhakti" (devotional) school of philosophy.
Zen meditation is a japanese adaptation of the chinese adapation of the Raja Yoga techniques of Hinduism/Buddhism.
As others have pointed out, Zen is not "standard", but just one variety of meditation among many.
However, to answer your question: TM is focused on the internal repetition of a one-word Mantra, given to you by a teacher, and in that regard is not very different than mantra meditation you'd find in some Buddhist (Thai, Tibetan, Indian, Chinese) traditions.
(I should point out that I do Buddhist meditation myself, but I've had friends and family members do TM, and we've compared notes.)
If you are interested in meditation in general (and not TM specifically), there are a lot of meditation centers offering free (or nearly free) courses. I've never heard of a Buddhist center turning anyone away for lack of funds.
No, what I wanted to say is that I'm familiar with meditation but I was trying to figure out what is the difference between normal meditation and TM but all TM websites described how TM will influence your life without actually explaining how is it different.
