Geshe Michael Roach is the first American to complete the 20-year Geshe degree (equivalent to a double doctorate in philosophy) in a traditional Tibetan monastery. He graduated from Princeton University with honors, a recipient of the Presidential Scholar Medallion and the McConnell Scholarship Prize from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs. A grant from that school allowed him to travel in Asia, for study with Tibetan Lamas at the seat of the Dalai Lama. Thus began his education in the ancient wisdom of Tibet.

Once he had gained a firm foundation, however, his principal teacher encouraged him to enter the world of business, explaining that a busy American office would provide the perfect real life laboratory” for actually testing the ideals he had learned. However, his instructor mandated that while in the office he must keep quiet about being a Buddhist. He was to wear his hair at normal length and dress in normal clothes. Whatever spiritual principles he used in his work should be applied quietly, without any pronouncement or fanfare. “I was to be a Buddhist sage on the inside,” writes Geshe Michael, “and a normal American businessman on the outside.” And so he didand in the process rose from messenger to Senior Vice President of Andin International, one of the world's largest diamond and jewelry firms, working with the owners to build the business from a $50,000 loan into a company with annual revenues exceeding $100 million in worldwide sales.

A teacher of Buddhism since 1981, he is also a scholar of Sanskrit, Tibetan, Russian, Greek and continues to translate numerous works. He founded and directs the Asian Classics Institute (http://www.world-view.org/), which offers a series of 18 courses on Buddhist philosophy, condensing the 20-year Geshe training program into university-style lecture classes, studied by 1000s of students around the world via correspondence and internet.

More recently, he completed a three year silent retreat in the Arizona desert with his spiritual partner Lama Christie McNally, a popular international speaker on the links between the religions of the world. She is a graduate of New York University, a Sanskrit and Tibetan translator and a professor of religious studies whose works have been published by Doubleday/Random House and other firms. She has served as a textual expert for the Asian Classics Input Project and is

In September 2004 they launched Diamond Mountain University (http://www.diamondmtn.org/), an institution modeled after the great Buddhist Universities of the past, offering rigorous training in philosophy, ancient languages, spiritual arts, and even Chinese Medicine. The have also founded numerous organizations (http://www.yogastudiesinstitute.org/, http://www.starintheeast.org/ and the Karmic Management Institute and are the authors of many books geared to teaching the principles of ancient wisdom to a variety of audiences including The Diamond Cutter: the Buddha on Managing your Business and Your Life, The Tibetan Book of Yoga: Ancient Buddhist Teachings on the Philosophy and Practice of Yoga; The Essential Yoga Sutra Ancient Wisdom for Your Yoga; How Yoga Works; The Garden, and The Eastern Path to Heaven A Guide to Happiness from the Teachings of Jesus in Tibet.