The Three-Year Retreat for Peace is the culmination of 35 years of work
The goal of Geshe Michael's work has been to preserve and transmit the complete Tibetan Buddhist path to the world beyond Tibet. His vision has been supported by many volunteers, teachers, and students around the world—all of whom have made this Three-Year Retreat possible.
Training
Geshe Michael began his training in the Tibetan monastic system in 1975 under the guidance of Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, one of the last Hlarampa Geshes to receive the title of highest scholastic honors by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama at the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
Geshe Michael was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1983 and is entirely fluent in the spoken and written Tibetan language. After approximately 20 years of daily intensive study with Khen Rinpoche in New Jersey and at Sera Mey monastery in Southern India, Geshe Michael received the Geshe degree in 1995 (akin to a Doctorate of Divinity). He has also studied extensively at Sera Mey with Geshe Thubten Rinchen, one of the great living scripture teachers.
This training helped him to deeply understand the importance of preserving the complete collections of Tibetan and Sanskrit Buddhist texts and how to teach the complete Buddhist Path particularly in the West.
Preservation
Due to the destruction of over 8,000 monasteries in Tibet in 1959, extraordinary efforts had to be undertaken to preserve and share Tibetan Buddhist culture.
Since 1988, the Asian Classics Input Project has saved thousands of these endangered masterpieces by combing monasteries, libraries and archives throughout Asia. After finding these texts (often the only known remaining copy), ACIP scans them, types them into computers, and then distributes them free of charge to scholars and teachers worldwide.
ACIP has released tens of thousands of pages of great books, on computer disc and through the internet, free of charge, to thousands of users in more than 50 countries.
These ancient texts, some of which are over 1,700 years old explain the process of deep meditation retreat.
Translation
With the complete teachings by the Buddha preserved (the Kangyur), the teachings by Indian Masters preserved (the Tengyur) and parts of the Tibetan Commentaries preserved (the Sumbum) the process of translating them into English began.
Geshe Michael has translated over 10,000 pages of Tibetan Buddhist texts. These have been organized into 36 courses that take approximately 12 years to complete. These include the complete sutra path that is taught in the Tibetan monastic system through the 18 Asian Classics Institute courses and the complete tantra path through the 18 Diamond Mountain Advanced courses. Lama Christie McNally has also translated and created 18 courses specifically about meditation.
All the Three-Year Retreatants have completed this course of study to prepare their minds for deep meditation retreat.
Teaching
Starting in 1993, Geshe Michael Roach developed and taught a seven-year Formal Study Program in New York. That program condensed the essence of the Six Great Books of Buddhism into a series of 18 Formal Study Courses to train the next generation of Western Tibetan Buddhist teachers.
Over 500,000 downloads of free Asian Classics Institute teachings have occurred online.
From March 3, 2000 until June 6, 2003, Geshe Michael took part in the first Three-Year silent, solitary retreat with five other retreatants including Lama Christie McNally. This showed that a great Three-Year Retreat was once again possible, even though few had undertaken a retreat of this length since the fall of Tibet.
At that time, Geshe Michael and Lama Christie McNally started to integrate the ancient Buddhist teachings from Tibet with the yoga lineages that were preserved in the Indian traditions, and is now teaching throughout the world about the value of re-integrating the classical scriptures and practices of Yoga, as practiced in ancient India, back into the authentic worldview and practice of Buddhism.
In 2004, Geshe Michael and Lama Christie McNally founded Diamond Mountain, a retreat center with Buddhist study courses to teach spiritual teachers from around the world and particularly train advanced students in the complete Vajrayana path.
In 2010, 130 fully-trained teachers will be the first graduating class from Diamond Mountain. Nearly all have already started teaching free of charge in the same manner as the lineage was passed down to them and several have hundreds of students of their own.
Experience
The Three-Year Retreat is about putting the scholastic study aside and experiencing directly for oneself what is true. In this sense, the Three-Year Retreat is the ultimate experiment in education. And would not be possible without the 35 years of work and training that led up to it.