Geshe Michael Roach is the founder and spiritual director of Diamond Mountain. He was born in Los Angeles in 1952 and was raised in Phoenix, AZ. As a student at Princeton University he concentrated his studies in religion and ancient Sanskrit and Russian language. He met his teacher Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin in 1972 in the U.S. and studied very closely with him after that time. He 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.

Christie McNally is a graduate of New York University and the Asian Classics Institute. She has studied under eminent Tibetan lamas in both India and Nepal and is a translator of both classical Tibetan and Sanskrit.

Christie has translated the entire text of “The Stages of Meditation,” from 8th century India and Tibet, and is one of the few westerners to have completed the traditional Nyen-Chen or “Great Retreat” by remaining in silence and isolation for an uninterrupted period of three years, three months, and three days. She is a co-founder and teacher at Diamond Mountain University.