True Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Stories Part VI

Michael Roach

Michael Roach (born December 17, 1952) is an American businessman, spiritual leader, and former Buddhist monk and scholar who has started several businesses and organizations, written books inspired by Buddhism, and translated Tibetan Buddhist teachings. He has at times been the center of controversy for his views, teachings, activities, and behavior.

Early life and education

Michael Roach was born on 17 December 1952 in Los Angeles, California to traditional Episcopalian parents. He grew up in Phoenix, Arizona along with three brothers. After his high school graduation, he received the Presidential Scholars Medallion from U.S. President Richard Nixon and then attended Princeton University in 1972. He traveled to India in 1973 to seek Buddhist instruction, while still in college. He returned to the United States and received a scholarship to return to study in India in 1974. While in India, Roach learned about a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in New Jersey led by a Mongolian-born lama, Sermey Khensur Lobsang Tharchin. Roach returned to Princeton, living at the monastery from 1975 to 1981. In the year before his graduation in 1975, both of his parents died due to cancer and then his brother committed suicide. In 1983 he was ordained as a Gelugpa Buddhist monk at Sera Monastery in South India, where he would periodically travel and study. In 1995, he became the first American to qualify for the Geshe degree.

Career

From 1993 to 1999, Roach developed and taught 18 courses loosely inspired by Tibetan Buddhism in New York City. These courses were based on the training monks receive in Tibetan monasteries, but organized to be taught by laypeople in a few months or less.

From 2000 to 2003, Roach organized and led a three-year silent retreat in the Arizona desert with five other participants, including Christie McNally with whom Roach had a complex and controversial relationship and shared a room during this time. The retreat was run along guidelines that fall outside of Tibetan traditions.

In 2004, Roach established Diamond Mountain Center, a retreat center in Arizona.

In 1981, Khen Rinpoche, the teacher of Roach, challenged him to apply Buddhist values to the "dirtiest business and make it clean". Since then, Roach has helped to found and develop the corporation Andin International, a jewelry manufacturer based in New York. The activities of Andin International started with a loan of $50,000 and three employees. By the time Roach left the firm in 1999 as vice president, the company's annual turnover was $100 million per year. In 2009, Andin achieved a turnover of more than 200 million dollars and was acquired by Richline Group Warren Buffett. He used the money from his work to create funds to finance various projects, such as food fund Sera Mey. For seventeen years, and while studying Buddhism, Roach commuted to a day job in Manhattan.

In 1999, the publishing house Doubleday Corporation, which is now part of Penguin Random House, invited Roach to write a book about the style of management he used for business and life. In "The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life", Roach explains how to apply the lessons of the Sutra of the Diamond Cutter (Diamond Sutra) in the context of business.

Charity

In 1987, Roach founded the Asian Classics Input Project (ACIP). He founded this project to create a complete and accessible version of Kangyur and Tanjur in electronic form along with related philosophical commentaries and dictionaries. ACIP contains more than 8500 texts - almost half a million pages, which he provided for free, and has digitized 15286 books over 31 years. It is one of many non-profits that sell Roach's teachings to the public.

ACIP donates to many causes. The Asian Classics Institute (ACI) pursued multiple projects to foster the learning and preservation of Tibetan Buddhism and meditation. These projects include organizations such as the Asian Legacy Library (ALL) and the Diamond Cutter Classics organization, and platforms like "The Knowledge Base" which offers free courses in a variety of subjects in multiple languages. The Asian Legacy Library alone has digitized over 16 million pages, according to Roach. In 2021, ACI launched the Castle Rock Fund as a vehicle to acquire the Castle Rock Mini Storage in to finance the cost of ACIP's headquarters in Sedona, Arizona, and to ensure the financial stability of the organization.