Diamond Cutter Institute (DCI)

DOWNLOAD PDF OF OPEN LETTER FROM GESHE MICHAEL

December 31, 2011

Dear Friends:

I would first like to wish you all a very happy New Year.  I hope that 2012 is as wonderful as 2011 has been, for all of you, and I very much hope that you will continue both your personal practice and your amazing teaching efforts in this new year.  I constantly hear from my grandchildren about the fine work that all of you are doing, and I am very, very grateful.  I hope that each of you will continue to find new ways to teach others in this year, and learn from them as well.

This note is to let you know about a new program within the Diamond Cutter Institute effort which I thought many of you might be interested in.

As you know, DCI was founded several years ago in order to help everyday people around the world gain success in their business career, their relationships, and their health.  It is founded upon the Diamond Cutter principles, but the programs are designed for people of any cultural background or religious beliefs.  We believe that if we can share with many people globally how mental seeds (planted by how well we care for others) create the world around them, then ultimately we can make a major contribution to the peace and prosperity of the entire world.

A real Mandala, if you will.

In its first few years of operation, the Institute has been a great success.  We have given numerous programs throughout the world, with recent tours for example to places like Tokyo, Paris, Kiev, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Guadalajara, Vancouver, and Hamburg.  We have also given trainings for companies such as British Airways, and now Uralsib of Moscow—each with over 20,000 employees.

 

We have designed a 12-level training program, and have completed a number of these levels in cities around the world.  On average we finish each level in about a year or a little less, in each city.

The DCI board consists of myself as owner and founder; Beth Muehlhausen, Chief Executive Officer; Cristina Garza as Chief Financial Officer; and board members Mercedes Bahleda, Eric Brinkman (Ven Nyingpo), and Tim Muehlhausen.  Mercedes and Eric of course also serve tirelessly, globally, 24/7 as my amazing personal assistants.  Our board has worked together extremely well, and I am extremely proud of our achievements together.  In all my years of corporate and non-profit work, I have never seen a more hardworking group of people, highly motivated to help the world, and very good at what they do.

As word of our programs spreads by word of mouth, DCI has been inundated with invitations to additional cities throughout the world.  Organizationally and personally we are stretched beyond the limits of what we can possibly continue to do.  And so we have come up with the idea of creating DCI Advocates.

 

This idea started when Scott Vacek offered to organize our visits to Eastern Europe earlier this year.  Scott served as point person from the DCI side, working with a corresponding point person from among the local organizers.  In the months prior to our visit, Scott was frequently on Skype with the local team, putting together marketing; venues; personnel; publications; and programs.

Then Scott would check back with the DCI board on necessary details and approvals.  He traveled to the locations before the rest of our staff arrived to check and confirm all the groundwork, then led the management of the events themselves.  The programs were extremely successful; Scott was able to focus on a single tour, give it a lot of attention, and take a lot of pressure off of the DCI Board—which is already overseeing events in over 50 cities.

A DCI visit to a city normally takes the 2+3 format, meaning that we first do 2 nights of evening talks which are open to the public.  People who wish to go deeper then attend a 3-day retreat, often on the following weekend.  The talks and retreat are dedicated to a single level of the 12-level DCI training.  It is not unusual for a public talk to have 300 to 500 people; and for more than 100 persons to attend the corresponding retreat.

The next level in the same city typically happens 8 to 14 months later.  In between, we organize follow-up programs, emphasizing local teachers as much as possible, ideally with support from visiting DCI staff teachers.  As participants move up through the levels, they are required to complete each preceding level with the local team, before moving ahead.

In this way then a DCI Advocate would manage visits and follow-up to a particular city; they would essentially “adopt” a city and local team that they felt a connection to.  We see a principal Advocate for each city, with one or two assistants who can back them up, and perhaps become an Advocate themselves in another city as DCI expands further.  All Advocates would continue to report to the DCI Board.

The reason we have given the name “Advocate” to this position is that, because of our tremendous growth, we have been unable to keep up with all the invitations that DCI has received.  We feel that we need a point person for each city who will “speak up” or advocate for the needs of that city and assure that they are served in a steady and responsible way.

 

We have already conducted programs, or received invitations or expressions of interest, from over 100 cities of the world.  Attached is a detailed list of these cities.  Obviously myself and the core team cannot visit even a quarter of these cities on a regular basis. 

The DCI Board will be designating “Tier I” cities where a new DCI level is introduced at least once a year.  The DCI Advocates help in these cities, but will be especially crucial in serving “Tier II” cities (which will have more occasional visits by the core team) and the “Tier III” cities (where most of the visits will be by DCI staff other than the core team).  I have marked cities on the list with an asterisk * that I feel are already Tier I or Tier II cities; there may be more, but these are the cities that have already demonstrated that they can organize ongoing, large programs.  We will continue to focus the core team on those places in the world that we feel will have the most impact on changing the planet.

 

This letter is an open invitation to anyone who would like to serve as a DCI Advocate, or other DCI staff.  Over 100 people trained under the Worldview umbrella have already participated in teaching or other staff positions on the DCI tours.  We are especially looking for people who have completed, or who intend to complete soon, the ACI syllabus of 18 courses.  We are also happy to consider people from all countries that have already held different levels of DCI courses who would like to help run a course in another country: for example, friends in Hamburg or Singapore who would like to be an Advocate in another city.

We are running DCI as a for-profit business management training organization, but on the whole we do not clear enough money to provide a viable income to most of our staff.  This is mostly because we use our profit-making tours to fund free tours to poor areas, such as ones in southeast Asia or Eastern Europe, where we feel that Diamond Cutter principles can help create a new and successful national economy.  That is, if you choose to become a DCI Advocate, you should do so primarily because you want to help the world, and not as an income.  We do pay travel and other expenses of a small core teaching staff for each tour, and the Advocate for a particular city would typically be included for that city.

Even if you would not like to become an Advocate, I would like to welcome those of you with ACI, DMU, or YSI training to submit your name to be considered as a staff teacher or worker on any tour that you would like to accompany.  You can see the schedule of tours and locations on the DCI website (diamondcutterinstitute.com; we are going to update the tour information in the coming two weeks, when we set the tour schedule for 2012; but this new year should include major tours to China, East & West Europe, Latin America, Singapore, Taiwan).

 

Please also fill out the form at  http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/727810/DCI-Advocate.  For any comments or questions, you can also always use info@diamondcutterinstitute.com; or submit a full resume of your own to this address.  We will be back to you by February 1, 2012, with a decision on your city.  You will receive a skype training from our CEO, Beth Muehlhausen, that will give you all you need to know for going forward into your new job!

 

I want to emphasize that any qualified person is welcome to assist on any tour, although those who are not invited as core staff may have to cover their own travel and other expenses, simply because we do not have those extra funds.  But we would love to have you; the staff on tour have a tremendously good time with each other and with the participants—imagine just two weeks ago, an entire room of participants in Beijing crying openly in happiness and gratitude, ready to take this knowledge into their lives and work.

We would like to invite you to be a part of this.

The DCI Board will be matching up cities and Advocates ON JANUARY 3.  This means you only have a day or two to respond to this letter!  (If you get the letter later, send your info in anyway, we’ll see what we can do perhaps as an assistant Advocate.)  And so Advocate candidates, by January 2 please send us an email at info@diamondcutterinstitute.comwith your first, second, and third choices for a city to serve.

I will be sending this letter out to a basic list of people that we know are already interested, but I am also asking the Worldview, Asian Classics Institute, Yoga Studies Institute, Diamond Mountain University, Three Jewels, and other organizations and groups (such as yoga and Dharma groups in New York) to forward this note to their mailing lists as soon as possible.  You are also very welcome to forward the letter to anyone else that you feel might be interested in helping—the DCI programs include components on business management, yoga, and meditation; and we of course also need people with skills in web design; web marketing; finance, and other organizational skills.

Thank you for taking the time to read this note, and thanks again to each of you who are already teaching, or who will be teaching, in the coming year.  Please please continue; you are having a tremendous positive effect upon the world.  Finally, another reminder that the upcoming Prescott retreat (January 6-15) through ACI-PHX will emphasize the proper etiquette of both students and teachers, and I strongly recommend either attending in person or keeping up with the recordings, which will be available on line after the retreat.

 

With sincere gratitude and love,

Geshe Michael Roach

 

 

DCI ADVOCATE CITIES

(includes both present and proposed; current Tier I and Tier II cities are asterisked feel free to suggest others, or tell us if we missed one!)

 

Abu Dhabi

Adelaide

Amsterdam*

Asheville

Athens

Austin

Bangalore

Bangkok

Beijing*

Beirut

Berlin

Bogota

Borobudur (Indonesia)

Boston

Brattleboro

Brazzaville (Congo)

Brussels

Bucharest

Budapest

Buenos Aires*

Buzios (Brazil)

Cairo

Cali

Capetown

Caracas

Casablanca

Chicago

Copenhagen

Dalien

Dallas

Delhi

Denpasar (Bali)

Detroit*

Dubai

Dublin

Durango

Dusseldorf

Durban

Fez

Frankfurt

Galway*

Geneva

Glasgow

Guadalajara*

Guangzhou*

Guelph

Haifa

Hamburg*

Hangzhou

Hanoi*

Havana

Ho Chi Minh*

Hobart

Hong Kong*

Honolulu

Houston

Istanbul

Jakarta*

Jerusalem

Johannesburg

Johor Bahur (Malaysia)

Juhai*

Kaohsiung*

Khartoum (Sudan)

Kiev*

Kobe

Kolkata

Krasnodar

Kuala Lumpur

Kyoto

Lima

Lisbon

London

Los Angeles*

Macau

Madrid

Manila

Medellin

Melbourne

Mexico City*

Milan

Montpelier

Montreal*

Moscow*

Mumbai

Munich

Mysore

Nairobi

New York City*

Nuevo Laredo

Osaka

Oslo*

Panama City

Paris*

Perth

Phnom Penh

Phoenix*

Portland

Prague

Puerto Vallarta

Punta del Este (Uruguay)

Reno

Rio de Janeiro*

Rome

Sacramento

San Diego

San Francisco

San Jose (Costa Rica)

San Juan

Sanaa (Yemen)

Santiago

Sao Paolo

Seattle

Sedona*

Seoul

Shanghai*

Shenzhen*

Singapore*

Sofia*

St Petersburg

Stockholm

Stuttgart

Sucre (Bolivia)

Sun Valley

Sydney

Tahoe

Taipei*

Tallin (Estonia)

Tehran

Tel Aviv

Tohoku

Tokyo*

Toronto*

Ulan Bataar*

Ulan Ude

Vancouver*

Vienna*

Vientiane (Laos)

Warsaw

Washington DC

Wellington

Yangon (Burma)

Yilan

Zurich

(10 more Chinese cities)

(30 more private companies)