One Minute Wisdom – Pure Words for the Pure Mind

Ancient mariners had a problem. After leaving land for months at a time, sailors often became very ill and their teeth began to fall out. Many men died from this. As we know today, this problem is called scurvy and it is caused by not getting enough vitamin C in one’s diet. The first navy doctor to discover the cause and cure for this condition helped many people in his lifetime and wrote down this knowledge in a book for future generations. Despite this, with the passing of time after his death, the knowledge was lost since nobody bothered reading his book. It
sat in some library archive while sailors once again continued to suffer and die from this preventable affliction, until the knowledge was once again “discovered.”
The Dharma is the body of knowledge compassionately given to us by the Buddha. In his wisdom, the Buddha understood the causes and conditions of our afflictions which are the roots of suffering. Although some texts of the Buddha’s teachings have been lost or forgotten, many still remain. However, without an audience to receive this knowledge it will serve no benefit. Just as the cure for scurvy existing as information in a library archive didn’t prevent sailors from losing their teeth and dying, the Dharma will not prevent afflictions and suffering if people don’t know about it and apply it to their lives.
It is in that spirit that we present you with this catalog of excerpts from Master Miao Lien’s teachings. This book is not linear. It does not need to be read in order from front to back. You can open any page and read any paragraph you want. By presenting the information this way it requires very little commitment. There is value even if you read it for only one minute. All the teachings tie together yet are independent unto themselves. We hope this makes the book easy to read and the teachings more accessible to the reader.