September Song

Volume 79. September 8, 2026

Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Let’s face it. Summer is brief. It ends too quickly.

But such is life. Here one minute, gone the next.

The Buddha recognized the ephemeral nature of life. He knew that all things are impermanent, all things are without a self.

It’s a difficult lesson to learn, especially if a loved one dies. And, one day long ago, one woman learned that lesson the hard way.

Once upon a time, she gave birth to a son. Her newborn soon fell ill and died. Overwhelmed by grief, she carried her dead child from house to house, begging her neighbors for medicine to bring him back to life. Her neighbors, realizing the child was already dead, looked on with pity. They thought she had lost her mind.

Finally, one neighbor advised her to visit the Buddha. Carrying her child, she ran to him and pleaded for a cure.

The Buddha listened with great compassion and said, “I can help you, but you must first bring me a handful of mustard seeds.”

Relief washed over the mother, but before she could leave, the Buddha added one condition: “The seeds must come from a house where no one has ever lost a child, a spouse, a parent or a friend.”

The woman went from door to door throughout the village. At the first house, the people were eager to give her mustard seeds, but when she asked if anyone had died there, they replied, “Alas! Our dead are many. Please do not remind us of our deepest grief.”

She went to a second house, a third, and dozens more. At every home, she encountered the same reality: someone had lost a father, a daughter, a husband, a friend.

As the sun set, the grieving mother sat down by the wayside. She watched the lights of the village flicker on and then burn out. In the darkness, she finally understood the Buddha’s lesson: death and impermanence are universal. She realized she was not alone in her sorrow. Everything that is born eventually passes away.

She returned to the Buddha. She felt peaceful and ready to let go.

She became his devoted disciple.

The End

My friends, Life is a river, constantly flowing, never standing still, not even for a moment. So too, our individual lives are a continuous stream of change. No two moments are exactly alike.

The trick is too savor the moment. Put all mental activity to rest. Embrace the here and now. Go with the flow.

Things change. The moment lasts forever.

When we see the world as Buddha-nature, we understand what William Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote those words in his eighteenth sonnet,

Thy eternal Summer shall not fade.

Adios, Summer of 2026!

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.