The Knowledge Base

Real Protection: The Higher Goal of Yoga (2005, Tucson)

TThere is a very famous idea in Buddhism, and also in the yoga traditions, which means to go for refuge—to go for shelter or to seek protection. In this short talk Geshe Michael Roach discusses this idea of real, or ultimate protection, specifically in the context of the deeper goals of Yoga.

Mahamudra Thoughts and Winds (2005, New York)

Mahamudra thoughts are an ancient method of working on the clearing out the inner channels and chakras from the inside. The purpose of all mahamudra is to see emptiness, or ultimate reality, directly. When we do see emptiness directly, all of our inner winds or prana are concentrated in the central channel of our inner body. Since the inner winds and our thoughts are linked together like a horse and its rider, we can bring the winds to the central channel if we bring the thoughts there: wherever the rider decides to lead, then the horse must follow. Later we will work from the outside, to bring the wind-horse to the central channel, which will also help the rider arrive there.

Living Lam Rim: How Khen Rinpoche’s Life Reflected the Teaching on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (2005, Arizona)

After spending many years at His teacher’s side, Geshe Michael teaches us the Steps of the Path to Enlightenment using beautiful examples and stories of how His own teacher’s life reflected these Lam Rim teachings. One of the greatest ways to learn these teachings is simply to observe the behavior of a great teacher who has received and mastered these teachings themselves.

Emptiness and Diamonds (2005, Arizona)

What is the connection between emptiness and diamond?

The Questions of King Milinda (2004, Tucson)

The Questions of King Milinda is a 2,000-year-old Buddhist text that chronicles the debate between the Greek King Milinda and an Indian Buddhist monk named Nagasena. The text has always been of particular interest to Western readers, since the king, being a Greek thinker, asked the monk the same questions we ourselves might. The exchange of questions and answers–which took place in a courteous, respectful manner high up in the mountains at the Sankheyya hermitage–touch on many of the thorniest issues found in any religion, and allows scholars to trace the ways in which Christianity and Buddhism influenced each other. This teaching historically traces how Western ideas expanded into the East and the fascinating exchanges that took place.

ACI In-Depth Course 1: Teachings of the Future Buddha: The Uttara Tantra of Maitreya (2003, Arizona)

In this first course of the ACI In-Depth Course Series, we will study the fifth of the five books of Maitreya, the coming Buddha. Centuries ago, the Coming Buddha, Lord Maitreya, taught his disciple Arya Asanga the secret of how to reach Enlightenment. He described to him in detail, the inner nature, which guarantees that each of us can, and will, become enlightened. Each of us carries within us a seed, a potential, a capacity to become a fully enlightened being: A Buddha.

ACI In-Depth Course 2: Master Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, The Chapter on Killing Anger (2004, New York)

This second course of the ACI In-Depth Course Series presents the entire chapter on “the art of not getting angry,” or the chapter on patience (Chapter Six) from The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Bodhisattvacaryvatra), by Master Shantideva (c. 700 AD). This course is meant to give much more detail on this subject than the related original ACI course, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Part Two (ACI Course XI), which covered somewhat less than half of this important chapter.

ACI In-Depth Course 3: Master Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Exchanging Self and Others (2004, New York)

This third course of the ACI In-Depth Course Series presents the entire section on the practice of exchanging ourselves and others, which is a large part of the chapter on meditation (Chapter Eight) from The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.

ACI In-Depth Course 4: The Art of Interpretation, Part 1 (1998, Bylakuppe, Geshe Thupten Rinchen)

In this fourth course of the ACI In-Depth Course Series, we will dive deeply into the study of emptiness and learn the art of interpreting what the Buddha really meant. This is one of the most beautiful subjects, and incidentally the most difficult, of the entire Geshe study program. This teaching was given by Geshe Thubten Rinchen, who Geshe Michael considers to be the greatest living scripture teacher in India. He agreed in 1998 to give a few lectures on it to Geshe Michael and 15 of his ACI students which turned out to be these 26 classes.

ACI In-Depth Course 5: The Wheel of Life (1998, New York)

Sometimes your life is just on a roll. The way you always wanted it. Your job is going well, your relationship is great, you have good energy and you feel happy. But how to keep it going? Can we get our life on an upward spiral and just keep it there? Forever? There is a way. It goes all the way back to the Buddha, more than 2,000 years ago. The Buddha didn’t just get enlightened—he also found a way that all of us can use, to get our career and our relationship in an upward spiral and keep it there.

Ripples of Light – Master Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: The Chapter on Dedicating the Power of Good Deeds (2002, Arizona)

This last chapter of the great Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life teaches us, in the form of a beautiful prayer of dedication, what to do with our good mental seeds. We have to avoid violence to others, we have to try to burn the old bad seeds in our minds, but from time to time we have to celebrate all the good seeds we have.

A Guided Emptiness Meditation (2000, Goa)

A guided meditation through the preliminaries and then on the six flavors of emptiness. It was led by Geshe Michael Roach in January of 2000 in Goa, India.

How To Stop Anger (1999, Hong Kong)

A one-night lecture by Geshe Michael Roach in Hong Kong on December 9, 1999 covering a special section of the Diamond Cutter Sutra in which Lord Buddha teaches about how to effectively manage and eliminate anger completely. According to Buddhism there are two ways to stop anger, a temporary or band-aid approach and an infinitely more powerful method designed to annihilate anger forever.

Twenty-One Verses in Praise of Tara, The Lady of Liberation (1999, Tucson)

Tara, The Lady of Liberation, is a woman Buddha and the female embodiment of enlightenment. Traditionally she’s represented in twenty-one different forms, meant to illustrate her special ability to appear to you in whatever way would be most beautiful and beneficial for you. This teaching is a detailed explanation of these twenty-one verses in praise of her different forms.

Dharma in the Workplace (1999, Palo Alto)

A very nice one-night lecture about Dharma and business that was given just as Geshe Michael Roach was finishing up his bestselling book The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life. It’s one of the very first lectures Geshe Michael gave about business, which would later evolve into the Diamond Cutter Institute and teaching these principals to thousands of people around the world.

The Ultimate Answer on Death (1999, San Francisco)

What is death? Most of us live our entire lives in fear and with a very limited understanding of this seemingly inevitable endpoint looming somewhere on the horizon. What happens after we die? In this one-night lecture given by Geshe Michael Roach on September 7, 1999 he clarifies what death is from a Buddhist perspective. He explores the core Buddhist ideas of emptiness and karma, and how they are crucial to an understanding of death, and that most important question of what happens to us after we die.

Six Paths of a Spiritual Warrior (1999, Galway)

What would it be like if you could learn a way to make contact with Enlightened Beings and live in a world of magic? If your life has become boring and full of uninspired routine, here’s an actual method to transform your life from one of “quiet desperation” to one full of adventure, excitement, and magical encounters. In the Vajrayana teachings of Buddhism, one of the most dangerous things you can do with your life is to imagine that you’re just a normal person, living a normal and mundane routine of eating, working, and sleeping. In these higher teachings of Buddhism, there’s a code to transform that normal life into something special and truly magical.

The Wheel of Life in the Heart Sutra (1999, San Francisco)

A one-night crash course on The Wheel of Life as it appears in the Heart Sutra. This teaching concentrates on one part in the middle of the Heart Sutra where Lord Buddha starts to explain about Emptiness and connects it to the twelve links of dependent origination from The Wheel of Life.

Death Redefined: Living a Meaningful Life (1999, Melbourne)

A public lecture by Geshe Michael Roach in downtown Melbourne, Australia in 1999. This lecture is divided into two parts, the first part is learning how to do a death meditation and then the second part is learning the practice of exchanging yourself and other people. These two practices normal come together and teach us a very powerful method of prioritizing our life and living in the most meaningful way possible.

The Garden (1999, New York)

If Buddhism is going to speak to those of us in the modern world, and those of us in the West in particular, you have to go through all of the points of Buddhism which we question. Is there a past life? Is there a future life? Can you really become enlightened in this lifetime? Can you really stop the aging process of the body? Can you really reach a heaven? Is there a soul or not? Can you prove it to somebody? There are questions that need to be emphasized for those of us in the modern world.