Passage to Buddha

The story

A young boy mourns the death of his father, and begins a quest to find his mother. He encounters many people on the way who quote Buddhist precepts: an eccentric monk, a girl who grows up into a young woman, a prison inmate, a foul-mouthed doctor and the young son of a hard drinking astronomer. Each of them tell the boy to seek someone to help him find the truth and his mother.