The fifteen Formal Study Courses cover the main ideas of the entire course of study followed by a Tibetan monk-scholar (or geshe) at one of the great monasteries of Tibet. The three-part Great Ideas series summarizes all fifteen ACI Courses, along with the teachings of the traditional training of a Tibetan Buddhist Master. In part one, we cover the first five ACI Courses: The Principal Teachings of Buddhism, Buddhist Refuge, Applied Meditation, Proof of Future Lives, and How Karma Works.
We're excited to reach the part of Liberation Thrust into the Palm of Your Hand that talks about the six main practices of a bodhisattva, and Geshe Michael will explore with us what it is to be a bodhisattva in the modern world. Too often in our daily lives, the focus is on me and mine--how can I get ahead? how can I get the advantage? how can I get more money, more fame, a better partner? A modern bodhisattva turns this upside down. A modern bodhisattva finds success by putting others first. They give what they want first to others, and the seeds this plants ensure they will get what they want--in ways that are double or triple what they gave.
If you really understand the emptiness of your primary practices, they become much, much more powerful. This is our third course covering the most famous of all works by Nagarjuna (c. 200AD) which he named simply “Wisdom”. For 2000 years, hundreds of commentaries were written about these 27 chapters in poetry. And it is really all the emptiness teachings that you've ever heard. All the emptiness teachings in Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan are based on Nagarjuna's "Wisdom".
Geshe Michael Roach
Friends of mine have asked me to write some details about my life, partly to clarify information which appears online or in the press about me as my teachings become more prominent around the world, and partly because one of my Tibetan lamas has asked some of my students to write a biography about myself. These friends have been pestering me for some years—but I felt hesitant to respond, since it seemed a pretty self-centered thing to do. But as it may be helpful to my students and friends, I have decided to relent.
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.