Geshe Michael Roach

Geshe Michael Roach is a fully ordained American monk who received his geshe (doctor of Theology) degree from Sera Mey Monastery in India after 22 years of study there and in the United States with his root Lama, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin.

About Geshe Michael Roach

• Geshe Michael Roach Publications
• Geshe Michael Roach Controversy
• Geshe Michael Raochs Teachers
• Geshe Michael Roach and Yoga
• Christie McNally

Geshe Michael Roach has been teaching Buddhism since 1981. He is a scholar of Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Russian, and has translated and published numerous works. Geshe Michael Roach received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and worked in New York City as a director of a large diamond firm for many years.

He is the founder of the Asian Classics Institute, the Asian Classics Input Project, Diamond Abbey, Three Jewels Bookstore, Godstow Retreat Center, Diamond Mountain University and Retreat Center and the Enlightened Business Institute and has been active in the restoration of Sera Mey Monastery.

Dozens of ACI-trained instructors are now teaching in more than ten countries to thousands of students, and ACI continues to thrive and grow in its New York area home base. Three ACI teachers are resident board members of Diamond Mountain, and they also travel in the U.S. and abroad to teach courses.

Geshe Michael Roach Projects

ACI - Asian Classics Institute

In 1993, Geshe Michael Roach founded the Asian Classics Institute (ACI), a Buddhist teacher-training program. ACI trains everyday Americans, both men and women, in the studies of a Tibetan monk-scholar. Within seven years of disciplined work, in the tradition of the Dalai Lamas, ACI students complete an authentic study covering the five great books of Tibetan Buddhism. The principal of the Institute is that sacred learning should be free of charge, but that students must be dedicated and hard-working to stay in its courses. Classes generally are held in the evenings and on the weekends, so that normal working people can fulfil their spiritual dreams.

Dozens of ACI-trained instructors are now teaching in more than ten countries to thousands of students, and ACI continues to thrive and grow in its New York area home base. Three ACI teachers are resident board members of Diamond Mountain, and they also travel in the U.S. and abroad to teach courses.

The ACI curriculum has also been adapted into a correspondence course program that has distributed more than 75,000 cassette tapes (by 2002) and more than one million pages of course work to students worldwide. The correspondence courses always are provided to students at cost, or for free to students who cannot afford the modest fee. In keeping with our lineage, ACI classes are provided free of charge, and students who are so inclined support their centers through voluntary offerings.

Asian Classics Input Project

The Asian Classics Input Project (ACIP) founded in 1986 by Geshe Michael Roach in collaboration with Tibetan refugees, is dedicated to digitally preserving the classical and sacred Buddhist texts. There is a great danger of forever losing the vast collection of Tibetan Buddhist scriptures because of the social and political turmoil in Mongolia and Tibet that began in the 20th century, including destruction of most of the libraries and monasteries. ACIP locates rare and endangered canonical texts, sets up computer training and text entry centers in Asia, then digitally compiles and formats these scriptures and places them on the ACIP web site for anyone to download and use for free. At over a dozen cataloguing and input centers in India, Russia and Mongolia, the Project has saved more than 150,000 pages of classical Buddhist texts from ancient India and Tibet. The ACIP database represents the largest single collection of publicly-distributed electronic Tibetan Buddhist scriptures in the world.