The Preface, narrated by Geshe Michael Roach

Over the past two thousand years, Buddhists of many countries and cultures have attempted to describe the direct experience of emptiness.  Many of these descriptions are simply ridiculous; such as saying that Buddhist emptiness means “nothingness,” or that nothing matters, or some kind of black hole or—wrongest—that there is no good or bad.

Perhaps the most detailed and most accurate description of emptiness in history has been written by the great Tibetan thinker Je Tsongkapa (1357-1419), commenting upon the original emptiness masters, Nagarjuna (200ad) and Chandrakirti (650ad).  It is entitled An Illumination of the True Thought.

In the summer of 2026, after more than 15 years of work, Geshe Michael Roach completed an English translation of this work, in some 2,000 pages.  He then wrote an introduction to the translation entitled The Preface.

While Tsongkapa’s Illumination is the greatest technical presentation of emptiness, The Preface is the most accessible explanation of the direct perception of emptiness ever written.

Michael Roach has received the Presidential Scholar Medal at the White House from the President of the United States.  He is an honors graduate of Princeton University and was the first American to earn the monastic title of Geshe, or Master of Buddhism, after 25 years of study in a traditional Asian monastery.  He has written or translated over 100 major works, including the international bestsellers The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business & Your Life; and How Yoga Works.