For Macro Mondays - "Seeds"

I like to look up information on things I photograph and was fascinated to learn how many parables there are about the mustard seed. The Buddhist version speaks to the universality of grief:

"Kisa Gotami’s only son died. In her grief, she carried the dead child to all her neighbors, asking them for medicine. At length, a man replied to her request: "I cannot give thee medicine for thy child, but I know a physician who can. Go to Sakyamuni, the Buddha."

Kisa Gotami went to the Buddha and cried: "Lord and Master, give me medicine that will cure my boy." The Buddha answered: "I want a handful of mustard-seed” but then added: "The mustard-seed must be taken from a house where no one has lost a child, husband, parent, or friend."

Kisa Gotami went from house to house, but when she asked “Did a son or daughter, a father or mother, die in your family?" all answered: "Alas the living are few, but the dead are many. Do not remind us of our deepest grief." There was no house where a beloved one had not died.

Weary and hopeless, Kisa Gotami sat down at a wayside, watching the city lights flicker up and then extinguish again. And she considered the fate of men: their lives also flicker up, then are extinguished. And she thought: "How selfish am I in my grief! Death is common to all; yet there is a path that leads him to immortality who has surrendered all selfishness."