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.
Read More

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.
Read More

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.
Read More

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.
Read More

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.
Read More

The Wheel of Knives (1998, New York, Geshe Michael Roach)

The text of the Wheel of Knives describes how bodhisattvas in the vicious circle of life are like peacocks who actually find poisonous plants more nutritious than medicinal ones. The idea is that the bodhisattvas can transform inner afflictions and outer difficult situations into precious opportunities for personal practice and helping others. According to the text, each unpleasant thing or event that ever happens to us is a result of “what goes around comes around”: the things we have done to others are returning back to us like a wheel of knives.
Read More

Why Your Children May Be Buddhas (1998, Mongolia)

A teaching that Geshe Michael gave back in 1998 during a teaching trip to Mongolia. It was a class about what an Enlightened Being, or Buddha, is like. Geshe Michael goes into detail explaining the four parts, or what’s sometimes described as the four bodies of a Buddha. This teaching places special emphasis on the Emanation Body, or the part of a Buddha which has the ability to take countless forms to help all living beings in exactly the way that would help us the most.
Read More

The Difference Between Nirvana and Samsara: Guidelines for a Meaningful Life (1998, Brisbane)

A one-night lecture in which Geshe Michael discusses the difference between two very important words in Buddhism: Nirvana and Samsara. These two words reflect the goals of all Buddhist practice—Nirvana is where you’re trying to go and Samsara is what you’re trying to get away from. However, before you have a long lecture about how to get to Nirvana and escape from Samsara, it’s important to clarify what they are. This lecture does exactly that. We find this one really helpful because the format also included a lot more interaction with the audience than usual, giving people a chance to share their ideas about what they think the qualities of Nirvana and Samsara are. This really flushed out many of the misunderstandings which new Buddhists in particular may have about the goals of Buddhist practice and clarified the path to reach those goals.
Read More

Mahamudra: Two Worlds Side by Side (1998, San Francisco)

A one-night course by Geshe Michael Roach in San Francisco on August 28, 1999. This teaching is about a special style of meditation called Mahamudra. This course will be based on a teaching about Mahamudra by The First Panchen Lama and will give an introduction to Mahamudra, a discussion about the advantages of studying the emptiness of the mind, as opposed to the emptiness of objects in general, and a description of beginning Mahamudra meditation for you to incorporate into your daily meditation practice.
Read More

ACI Course 02: Buddhist Refuge (1993, New York)

Topics include: what is the perfection of wisdom, what is refuge, the objects of refuge, the reasons for taking Buddhist refuge, the qualities of a Buddha, the different types of bodhichitta, what is nirvana, the divisions of nirvana, five different proofs that emptiness is the ultimate nature of reality, and the five paths which lead to full enlightenment.
Read More

ACI Course 04: Proof of Future Lives (1994, New York)

Topics include: the definition of valid perception, the three levels of perception, who has valid perceptions and how, evaluating things beyond our direct perception, how great compassion is developed, the nature of omniscience, the material cause of the mind, proofs of the mind's source, proofs for the existence of past and future lives, and how desire leads to rebirth - an explanation of crucial links in the chain of dependent origination. 
Read More

ACI Course 05: How Karma Works (1994, New York)

Topics include: an Abhidharma overview; the definition and nature of karma; good, bad and neutral karma; karma of body, speech, and mind; the definition of virtue and non-virtue; black and white deeds; projecting and finishing karma; karmic consequences; how karma is carried; how emptiness allows karma to function; karmic paths; the five immediate misdeeds; how to make a karmic result powerful; and the purification of karma.
Read More

ACI Course 05: How Karma Works (1999, Katmandu)

Topics include: an Abhidharma overview; the definition and nature of karma; good, bad and neutral karma; karma of body, speech, and mind; the definition of virtue and non-virtue; black and white deeds; projecting and finishing karma; karmic consequences; how karma is carried; how emptiness allows karma to function; karmic paths; the five immediate misdeeds; how to make a karmic result powerful; and the purification of karma.
Read More

ACI Course 06: The Diamond-Cutter Sutra (1995, New York)

Topics include: how the direct perception of emptiness is accomplished, what happens after the direct perception of emptiness, how understanding emptiness leads to the destruction of mental afflictions, how the direct perception of emptiness leads to full enlightenment and paradise, emptiness and the two extremes, how empty things function, emptiness and purification, the relationship between emptiness and karma, emptiness and the bodies of a Buddha, what is non-duality, how a bodhisattva should live, the future of Buddha's teachings, and the perfection of wisdom.
Read More