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When I was 16, I got really sick.
Was run down, working hard in school, not eating properly,
and I got pneumonia, and an abscess developed on my lung.
Well one day the abscess burst and I hemorrhaged.
I needed blood.
Pretty sure everybody thought I might die,
obviously I didn't.
But some say that god saved me.
Believers think god communicates to us through miracles.
That miracles are proof of the divine.
Now I'm going on a journey to discover
the power of miracles.
You fell from up there down to here?
What did the doctors say?
You are a miracle.
To discover what's luck and what is fate.
In the Chinese thought everything has a
reason for why it occurred.
To see how belief in miracles
can change history.
The miracles symbolize the beginning
of the Jewish people.
And how faith can change lives.
You are looking at a true miracle of god.
To achieve what appears to be impossible.
The real miracle is to transform the human mind.
That's the miracle we need.
Most who believe in god believe
god is watching over us.
Every moment of every day, guiding us, saving us.
To me it has to be a miracle that he can look out
for all seven billion of us.
So when I heard about Alcides Marino
I had to come to New York and hear his story.
Well here we are.
Eight years ago, Alcides came to work as a window washer
at this 47 story tower in Manhattan.
Tell me about it, what happened?
I woke up in the morning, take my car in,
commute from New Jersey and come to the building.
Did you take the elevator?
And go all the way to the top.
The top is 47 stories high.
47 stories, yes,
and climb to the platform.
Alcides had just begun to lower the
platform when one of the two cables holding it snapped.
I just grabbed the scaffold and
just hold up until another cable snap.
911 what's the emergency?
9-15 responding,
transport is on the way.
The paramedics they found me right
in the middle, the scaffold like that.
Between the two buildings.
Yeah between the two,
it was right in the middle, they took me out from the.
Alcides fell 47 stories, 500 feet.
He broke ten bones, his lungs collapsed,
he needed 43 pints of blood and plasma.
He spent three weeks in a coma.
Do you remember the day you woke up from the coma?
- I - woke up December 24th
right in the bed and my wife was there.
A fall from just ten stories is something
hardly anyone survives.
Doctor's say Alcides's 47 story plunge was beyond belief.
I've seen it all, or at least I think I have,
until something like this happens.
You fell from up there down to here?
Yes.
And here you are.
Yes sir and look I'm walking and everything.
Give me a name for that.
I mean the doctor told me,
"you are a miracle."
He said, "you are a miracle."
What do you think?
I don't know, still I don't know.
Alcides has a hard time accepting this
as a miracle because he was not alone when he fell.
His younger brother was on this platform with him,
he died the moment he hit the ground.
What was your brother's name?
Edgar.
There we are.
There he is.
Yeah.
Still feels the same.
Very nice.
My brother's a big loss.
Were you close?
Really, really close,
that was a great man.
I'm sorry Alcides,
it must be very painful.
Yes, I just bring him to work with me,
to help out, because.
He's younger.
Oh yes he was younger than me and
he was a good man.
You think god saved you?
I think so, I believe that yes.
So that makes you the miracle,
but at the same time, your brother is gone,
the one you, do you worry about that?
Do you try to reconcile that, try to figure out why him?
And not me.
Not you.
Well yes I asking why, why, why,
what happened, why?
If it was me, I would wonder every day.
God give me a second chance,
I mean to keep going, to keep going with my life.
I still looking forward to find out what
exactly I have to do.
Alcides is no longer a window washer;
he and his wife have a new life in Arizona,
where they're raising their family.
He's still trying to understand whether
god has a plan for him.
Why me, does god has a purpose for me?
Alcides wonders, "why did I survive when"
my beloved brother did not?"
Why, I mean is there some entity that makes that choice?
Or is, do we live with randomness,
just pure mindless randomness?
For Christians, miracles are proof that life is not random.
They believe god intervenes in the world for a reason.
Jews also believe in the power of miracles.
In fact their faith was built on a bedrock
of divine intervention.
I've come to Jerusalem to see how Jews celebrate
the miracles of their exodus from Egypt.
On a night that's different from all other nights.
Passover.
Hi.
Hello there.
How do you do?
I'm very well thank you, this is for you.
Thank you very much, I'm Aviva.
Hello Aviva.
Welcome to my home, you do.
Oh lord, oh.
Rabbi Maya.
Nice to meet you, how wonderful.
Maya Leibovich is the first Israeli
born woman ever to become a rabbi.
I've known a few rabbis, never a lady.
I hope you enjoy the Seder and
we'll do our utmost to make it.
If there's food I'll be okay.
Food, of course.
Yes.
This is the charoset, and you can taste it and you can
decide if it, it's got to make you feel as
if you're getting drunk, is it winy enough?
To tell you the truth I think it's enough.
I think it's enough too.
Okay guys let's get started,
Seder Pesach is starting.
Come on, everybody sit down.
One of the most important traditions in Judaism
and this has been ordered to us from our ancestors,
thou shalt not speak on your cell phone during the Seder.
So we have a cell phone basket here.
The month that we came out of Egypt
is called in Hebrew Nissan.
And the word Nissan comes from the word nissim,
which is miracles.
It's the month of the miracles,
which will symbolize the beginning of
the Jewish people, and the people as an entity.
The way we go with the Seder is that
we read through the haggadah so Morgan as our guest
we would welcome you to start with
the bread of affliction.
This is the bread of affliction that
our fathers ate in the land Egypt.
Let all that are hungry enter and eat,
and all who are in want come and celebrate the passover.
This year we are slaves,
next year we shall be free men.
The passover meal is a celebration of the bond
Jews feel with god, and it's an occasion for children
to understand the foundation of their faith.
The Seder recounts how the Jews escaped slavery.
Thanks to god's striking the Egyptians with
a series of ten plagues.
So rabbi...
Yes.
Why passover,
what does the word itself refer to?
When god brought upon Egypt the tenth plague
of killing the first born, he told the Israelites
to put blood on the thresholds of their homes and
the angel of death passed over the homes of the Hebrews,
and only took the first born of the Egyptians.
Many Jews believe god's sparing
of their children was proof they were his chosen people.
But this was not the only divine sign.
The miracle of getting out of Egypt was
followed by the miracle splitting of the sea.
God made two miracles, one was splitting
the sea before the Hebrews, and then closing it
before the Egyptians.
So god wants us to remember the Egyptians are just his
sons as we are, so by putting drops of wine on our plates
we're actually putting drops of sorrow that god had lost
so many of his children while saving the others.
This acknowledgement that the
exodus miracles didn't benefit everyone,
reminds me of Alcides Moreno.
Divine will is not easy to understand.
So what is your take on the whole idea
of the series of miracles?
I don't think anybody's gonna split
the sea for us today.
I wish somebody would bring peace to us today,
but the Bible is not a book of history.
The Bible is a book of ideas.
The question is what can we learn from it?
What can we take into our own life?
It's a way of saying thank you, you know.
It's a way of teaching the kids that every small thing is
not granted, that you need to say thank you.
It's nice to have parents,
it's lovely to have a roof above your head.
That probably the biggest miracle of
all of them that Jews are still here.
I want them to come out with the
idea that miracles can happen.
That's the story.
The Israelites saw these miracles
as proof that god cared about them.
Not all modern Jews believe in the miracles of passover,
but these stories still define them as a people,
and that deep well of tradition and moral strength
has sustained them, been called on by them for
thousands of years to get them through hard times.
Around the world belief in miracles
gives people strength.
In Mexico City the basilica of our lady of Guadalupe
marks the spot where the virgin Mary is said
to have appeared to a peasant 500 years ago.
In Hong Kong, Buddhist pilgrims flock to the statue of
Guan yin, who they hope will Grant them
medical cures, a spouse, or good grades.
And in Rome miracles can turn ordinary people into saints.
I've come to the Vatican to understand how
the catholic church verifies miracles.
I think the first time I was at the Vatican was about 1983.
I'm meeting monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo,
the head of the pontifical academy of sciences.
So let's talk just for a moment about miracles,
do miracles really exist?
For instance Jesus walking on water.
In the life of Christ,
if you don't accept the miracles it's
impossible to understand.
Each page of the gospel is a miracle of Christ.
To consider a person is Saint the church needs a miracle.
In order to have saints you
have to have miracles.
Yes.
Unless you are a martyr,
the only way to sainthood is to be deemed responsible
for performing two miracles after you die.
Pope John Paul the second became a Saint in 2014,
after two women who prayed to him after
his death claimed to be miraculously cured.
One of Parkinson's disease, another of a brain aneurism.
The Vatican spends years investigating these claims,
sometimes decades.
The church has a devil's advocate who goes and
whenever anybody claims to have seen or
experienced a miracle,
the church sends the advocate to investigate.
Yes, they have to advocate
and have scientific people, special doctors,
to prove that this is a special intervention of god.
So if I come and say I have experienced
a miracle, would the church then say,
okay well we'll check that out.
Exactly, we've got to check.
Does the hand of god really intervene?
Not just in matters of life and death,
but also in the ups and downs of our daily lives
or does everything that happens happen by chance?
What, if anything,
governs the seemingly random moments that change
our lives and send us into different directions?
Like a poor boy from Mississippi
ending up in Hollywood.
I always loved the movies,
always dreamed I would be in them.
I was a believer, and I actually made it,
now was that a miracle?
Most of us have a turning point in our lives,
a pivotal moment where you wondered, how did this happen?
Mine was 1989 I made three films,
'lean on me', 'driving miss Daisy'
and 'glory'.
Did I make it happen?
Was someone up there calling the shots, or was I lucky?
To try to understand this I've arranged to meet a psychology
professor who thinks we often mistake
random chance for miracles.
Danny Oppenheimer.
Nice to see you.
How are you today?
I'm good, you?
I'm good.
Good.
What are you doing?
I'm flipping coins.
Why?
I'm looking for streaks.
Streaks?
Yeah if you flip a coin enough times
you're gonna get a streak.
Really?
That's a lot of tails.
Well if I flip a coin twice and
I get heads both times is that miraculous?
No, if you do it 50 times
and you get 60 that's a miracle.
Well yeah if you get more
than you flip certainly.
But how rare does an event have to be before we would
call it miraculous, one in a million, one in a billion?
I'll choose billion.
Alright one in a billion,
well let's try something.
Alright.
Jack of diamonds, 6 of spades, king of spades, 2 of hearts,
7 of diamonds and Ace of spades.
Is it miraculous to have gotten this sequence?
No, I mean it's just a random
selection of cards off the deck.
Well right but this particular sequence
starting with the Jack and then getting
the six of spades and then king of spades,
it only happens one in about 14 billion times
you draw six cards.
So it's pretty miraculous by your
one in a billion standard.
So you're telling me that
this is miraculous?
Well no as you said before
it's just a random set of cards.
What if it was the first six digits of your
social security number, what if it were the last six
digits of your social security number?
The first six digits of your phone number?
Sometimes it's not actually miraculous,
sometimes it's just probability playing
its tricks on you.
Alright so how do we include the divine
because there are people who really do think that
there is divine intervention in these kinds of interplays.
Absolutely and nothing I'm saying
here rules out the possibility of the divine.
The fact that probability predicts certain things
doesn't mean that there can't be divine intervention.
But miraculous things that are so unlikely that you
think it can't happen by chance alone, they do happen,
and they have to happen.
It would be odd if the didn't, because with six billion
people in the world there are so many opportunities
for something really unusual to happen,
we would expect it to happen to some of them.
Mmm.
It's human nature to make a symphony out of
the cacophony of events going on around us,
doesn't mean that divine Providence doesn't exist.
In fact as I learned when I was in Rome,
in the past chance and god co-existed.
The ancient Romans had a different take on miracles.
Before they became Christians Romans had many gods.
They believed the gods controlled their fate and
everything that happened was decided by them.
Archaeologist Valerie Higgins tells me the gods even
determined the outcome of sporting events.
So we're here in the circus Maximus,
this was the largest circus in Rome,
in fact in the Roman empire,
and this was where they did chariot racing.
We are actually standing on the track?
Yeah the starting gates were down there,
and they would race through here up to the other
end where they would turn around and then go
back down that end, and they would do that seven times.
At least a quarter of a million people could fit in here.
Bedlam.
Yeah right, so this was a place
that was full of life and full of action.
Well it must have been quite a lot
like modern day horse racing, you know, betting,
and wagering, and.
For sure yes, we know there was lots of
betting, and lots of gambling.
Gambling particularly on dice games
was frowned upon because you were betting on the
will of the gods, but widespread gambling
began to change the way Romans thought about fate,
and opened the way for belief in miracles.
How did gambling fit with the idea that your fate
was already set no matter what you did,
you were going to wind up the way you were gonna wind up.
They did very much believe that their
fate was set, but, you know, it didn't make them passive.
They certainly did everything they could
to get the gods behind their riders.
Well if I were to ask like for instance
the day of a big race, you know, and the ancient Romans were
thinking well it's in the hands of the gods,
but we need to know what the gods want.
Right.
How would we figure that out?
How did they go about figuring out what the gods wanted?
What the gods wanted,
well you had to go to a priest who was specialized
in this sort of thing.
Just around the corner from the race track,
hidden in an alleyway and down in a basement,
Valerie takes me to see the remains of the temple
that dates back to the third century.
A place where Romans may have tried to twist
the will of the gods.
This is spectacular.
Yes it is,
what we're coming into now is a mithraeum.
A mithraeum.
Yeah that's right,
it's a special kind of ritual space for the cult of Mithras.
He's the god, he's killing the bull.
Mithras was a god for men, tough men,
soldiers, powerful business men.
So we're here in this mithraeum which is
kind of like the original man cave.
We know they did a lot of feasting.
Would there be any of the
priests down here with them?
There would be priests down here
yes I think for sure, who would be overseeing the feasting,
'cause it was quite essential that you did the ritual,
you know, correctly to ensure that your team
was going to be successful in the circus Maximus.
So here we are down here and
we're doing all of the rituals and so
are we really adjusting the fates to
take care of what we want taken care of,
or do we do a little?
No that doesn't stop you giving fate
a helping hand.
Certainly we know there was a lot of cheating
that went on in the circus Maximus.
No.
Oh I'm afraid so,
they did everything they could to make things work,
to make them successful, and they certainly
weren't above cheating.
The fact that you were allowing the gods to decide your fate,
didn't mean that you couldn't help them along.
If you could.
If you could help them along.
Yeah, yeah, you know,
because their idea is that the god works for you,
and that's in every aspect of your life including
of course your team racing in the circus Maximus.
The Romans don't have faith, they just follow the rituals.
Have fates.
They have fates, quite right,
they have fates not faith.
That H makes a big difference.
The ancient Romans believe that if you
were good to the gods, they would be good to you.
Every single event from winning a chariot race to
rolling of the dice could be the result of
divine intervention, a minor miracle.
I'm just trying to work out how a couple of millennia of
Catholicism might have changed the way the Romans think.
Do they still think god will intercede?
And reward their fate with a royal flush perhaps?
The idea that nothing in our lives happens by
chance did not die with the culture of ancient Rome.
It remained alive and well in the Chinese philosophy
and religion daoism.
Daoism dates back nearly two millennia.
Gods are not the focus of daoism,
the focus is the dao.
The ultimate creative energy of the universe
to which we are all connected.
This interconnectedness means our fates are
all set at birth.
So do daoist's believe miracles are possible?
To find out I'm heading to the heart of the
Chinese community in Los Angeles to meet
a fourth generation daoist fate calculator named Jenny Liu.
Jenny Liu?
Morgan Freeman.
Yes ma'am.
Nice to meet you.
Thank you.
Come on in please.
Thank you.
So did you do my life chart?
I did, we had you here as June 1st,
so 6-1, 1937; 2 am, is that correct?
Yes.
Your life map lets us know what over
120 stars are located at your time of birth.
These stars configure a certain energy field that
impact the quality and success of your life.
So in China we don't call this astrology actually,
we call it fate calculation, fate calculation.
Fate calculation.
Covers your life in ten year periods,
and we see from age six to 15 is one, 16 to 25,
and so on and so forth.
So what now between 76 and 85?
Right now you're in your friendship sector.
In the friendship sector the star that's there
is called Wun-Zong.
This star represents scholars, learned people.
These are the people that you want
to surround yourself with.
So far so good.
So far so good, and one of the reasons why maybe
you have not come here yet until today is one of the
stars in your personal sector is called din-sun
and din-sun is the adventurer,
somebody who likes to take things as they come.
So if my fate is already laid out,
does that leave room for like miracles?
Absolutely, we don't think of astrology
chart as predestined that it's your only fate
that's carved in stone.
We see a life map, just like we say life is a journey,
and you go on any journey you need to have a map.
There's gonna be dead ends,
there's gonna be multiple pot holes.
If you know where they are you're still in charge
of your own car, this is just a navigation system.
You can turn.
If you understand how you're connected to everything
around you, that is the miracle waiting to happen.
So is this connected to feng shui?
Feng shui this is based on the daoist thought,
everything around us is connected.
Everything is made of energy,
we're all connected through this energy.
Feng is wind, shui is water.
It's an energy that we cannot destroy or create,
it's always there.
But we can divert it, we can harness it.
In China we say.
We ride it.
We can ride it exactly.
I was gonna say in Chinese they'll say birds
do not fly they are flown.
Fish do swim they are.
Carried.
They are carried, they are swum by water.
We always think,
particularly in Christianity,
that a miracle is a result of divine intervention.
In the Chinese thought everything
is connected.
Everything has a reason for why it occurred.
Thank you.
Feng shui, wind, water.
Birds don't fly, they ride the wind.
Fish don't swim, they're carried.
Everything that happens to us is a result of
all the things that we are connected to.
What we call divine intervention is merely
connections we weren't aware of.
Makes me wonder if we shouldn't maybe stop
trying so hard to control our lives
and learn to ride the wave of life.
Our lives are filled with unexpected twists and turns.
Some believe there's nothing beyond randomness.
Others say we are propelled by the will of god
or the energy of the universe.
Both those beliefs could make the difference between
life and death because the human mind could have
a hidden power to unleash a miracle.
I'm travelling the world trying
to understand the power of miracles.
And I've come to Cairo to find out if that power
could come from our own minds.
I'm visiting one of the world's oldest hospitals,
a place that was famous for combining medical science
with the healing power of belief.
So the writings around the building describe
the founding of this hospital, and of the entire complex.
Harvard historian of Islam and
physician Ahmed Ragab has brought me
to the Qalawun complex,
which first opened its doors around 1285 ad.
This would be the entrance through
which patients would normally walk.
Wow, this is a dramatic change from outside.
This is actually by design.
When you walk into this corridor from the outside the
sunny and the dirty street, and it's very noisy.
You walk in here and it's a dark, calm, shaded corridor.
Patients came here hoping to be
cured by both cutting edge medicine and
a miraculous intervention from god.
I want to show you something here.
Oh okay.
Oh my goodness.
The construction here is the most impressive thing
I think I've seen anywhere.
This is the shrine of sultan Qalawun,
the founder of this hospital.
Patients would have come in and offer prayer
of thanks for the sultan.
Slowly Qalawun himself becomes connected to
the idea of healing.
It's like in this history we're looking at
the making of a healing Saint.
Does that mean that there becomes
a connection between faith and healing?
Medicine as a whole was seen as
the conduit of the will of god.
So at the end of the day we fall sick in part this is
something that god wills, and we would only be healed
through medicine but only by the will of god.
If god wills it.
Exactly.
So actually everything that happens
is a will of god.
Exactly.
Centuries ago Muslims believed faith
and medicine worked hand in hand.
But can belief in divine intervention actually help
medicine heal us today?
Tom Renfro is familiar with the cliché the miracle of
modern medicine, because he's a practicing physician,
but he also believes in divine miracles
and that one happened to him.
It was 18 years ago that I stood there
to give thanks to god for healing me and what I told you
at that time was, "you are looking at a true miracle."
"A miracle of god."
The hunt for miracle stories has brought
Indiana university scholar candy Gunther brown to
Norton, Virginia to meet tom.
She's studying whether faith and prayer can actually
improve medical outcomes.
The question that really interests
me is what happens when people prey for healing.
Candy it was in 1996 in the fall of that year,
that I found a nodule on the back of my neck.
Later on that fall I found more nodules under my arm,
and I sought medical attention,
and the biopsy under my arm showed that I had
an unusual form of lymphoma called mantle cell lymphoma.
The prognoses was very poor, and they gave me months to
live, and basically told me enjoy what time you have left.
And the goal is to hopefully keep me alive through Christmas.
I was a physician, I knew the objective evidence
that was there.
I was in multi organ failure.
I had a disease that there was no medicine or cure for
that would wipe this disease out.
Instead of despair the lord wants us to remember,
I brought you all this way I'm not gonna leave
you here by yourself.
Did you have medical treatments?
No I did not have medical treatments,
not at that time.
The tumors continued to progress,
and as they progressed the people came together more and
more intense with prayer.
My pastor organized a weekend prayer to where
people would come and pray perhaps even all night,
and it was a remarkable time.
By now the tumors were the size of apples on my neck.
My arms stuck out because of the massive
adenopathy under my arms.
My abdomen was expanded, I was dying.
The lord actually spoke to me and said,
"now is the time to go to the hospital."
Chemotherapy typically only delays
the progress of mantle cell lymphoma.
It's not a cure.
So they started an infusion and it was
like the rock that David threw at Goliath.
Before the infusion even completed there was something
that changed in me physically.
The tumors they became like a Nerf ball, like a sponge,
and very soft, and they started disappearing
in front of your eyes.
And all of this massive adenopathy just disappeared
over the next 24, 48 hours.
It was gone.
Do you ever wonder did the
chemotherapy just work better than the doctors
expected it to work?
The chemotherapy it wasn't designed to cure.
No one expected the tumors to utterly start
disappearing or melting.
I should have died multiple times during this illness
from pulmonary embolisms, from pneumonia,
from renal failure.
But I had faith.
I had people that poured their words into me to encourage me,
and I believe through that that god intervened and healed me,
and here we are 18 years later me talking to you.
To me that is a miracle.
It is a miracle that I'm here.
Why did tom Renfro survive when
so many people who prey for healing don't make it?
Tom believes the power of his faith and that of
the people around him helped the chemotherapy achieve
the impossible.
It strikes me that much of what we call miraculous
starts right here in the mind.
We close our eyes in prayer don't we,
and I think that's because the goal is to focus the mind.
To transcend the distractions of everyday life.
To set our minds to achieve what at first
we might fear is impossible.
I've come to India to explore a religion that believes
we all have the mental power to perform miracles.
This is the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya.
According to Buddhist tradition 2,500 years ago
a man named Siddhartha Gautama came to the
realization that the human mind had
immense untapped powers.
In doing so he founded an entirely new religion,
Buddhism, and tradition says he did it right here
under this tree.
I want to understand what Buddhists believe
happened to Siddhartha as he sat under the tree.
Tibetan monk Losang Tenpa has promised to help me find out.
So.
Glad to be here.
I'm glad you could come.
Oh me too.
So this is our holy spot where the
Buddha obtained awakening.
Losang tells me he'll get me to understand
the miracle of the Buddha's enlightenment,
and he will do it by challenging my mind
to get me to see the light myself.
So what do you know about?
Siddhartha, I mean.
What do they teach you in America?
I learned that he was of noble birth,
and he grew up very, very sheltered,
and then one day he wondered out of the compound.
That's right.
And began to see life as it really was.
Why did he do that?
That's the question you're
going to answer.
Well how would you like it if your father
had decided as soon as you were born that this
baby of mine's gonna be the king?
So I've got to keep him in this palace surrounded by
beautiful sense objects, flowers that never drooped,
beautiful young ladies who never look old.
Sounds perfect.
Isn't that perfect yeah, but this guy wasn't
satisfied with that.
Buddha left the palace, right?
Yes.
And do you know what he saw when he left the palace?
Well as I understand it he saw suffering.
He saw real life.
And what for?
Well there were old people, cripples.
Yeah.
Beggars.
Yeah.
People who had nothing,
people who were hungry.
Yeah it's like an eye opener, it's like a wow.
He saw death.
Yeah.
His father didn't want him to see death.
He made him think so strongly, he felt I've got to
leave this place and find out what is the cause of this.
Why do people suffer?
Siddhartha roamed for six years
seeking to understand the cause of suffering.
Until he finally came to the shade of a ficus tree,
and decided that he would stay right on that spot,
focusing his mind, until he discovered how
to end human suffering.
After sitting motionless for an entire night,
Siddhartha achieved a mental transformation.
Buddhists say he became the Buddha, the enlightened one.
He taught us, he said you know what a good
doctor would tell a patient, "man you're sick, you're sick,
you're suffering, you know, you have a problem."
Second, I know the cause, basically craving attachment.
The Buddha realized that by letting
go of his desires and his attachment
to the material world,
he could rid himself of suffering.
But the Buddha and for generations of Buddhists
after him, this freedom from attachment seems to
allow a remarkable perhaps even miraculous mental
and physical focus.
You know he was so grateful to this tree under
which he'd sat and achieved this amazing realization,
he sat in this are for seven weeks and for one of those
weeks just gazing, unwinkingly they say.
Unmoving and unblinking for seven days.
It's possible, why not?
We haven't exercised our minds.
We're so busy with external things,
buying and selling, and doing all the things.
We've never actually seen
a yogi in action.
Well in a sense it's an amazing thing
but you and I can do it.
For Buddhists years of mental training
and showing love and compassion to others
can free them from suffering.
Walking around this temple you feel like a
miracle really could happen.
The miracle of people being content with their lives.
People getting along together.
Do you want to just come and
see how a Tibetan llama teaches western students?
Sure.
How are you?
I am well, how are you sir?
I'm very good, I saw your movie.
Oh you did, which one?
I don't know.
Who else likes my movie?
Bravo.
Shortcut we all need to care and
love and respect each other.
That is the source of happiness.
Whoever had that their journey's good.
Whoever not keep this in their heart, journey's not good.
Thank you, from today you are my friend.
Okay.
I like you.
So a lot of religions are pretty
much miracle based.
I mean Christianity, Judaism.
Right.
Really.
Right.
You don't do miracles?
What's a miracle?
I mean flying in the sky is that a miracle?
It is, it is, it is.
Birds do it, birds do it.
But we normally think of miracles
as some sort of divine thing,
something that gives us proof of god or something, you know.
Okay so that we could ask where is god?
We ask the mystics or the yogi's were is god?
They'll point here, they won't point up there.
They'll say it's in here.
So then if you're being inspired by your inner god,
Buddha, Christ, you know, Christian or whatever
you want to call it, maybe then you can perform
what's called a miracle.
What does this world need the most?
It needs healing, right, love, it needs reconciliation.
I think that's a miracle, and that's the miracle we need.
We don't need people levitating three inches off
their butts, you know, while meditating that's stupid.
Right.
So let's stick to the real miracle which
is to transform the human mind really.
Alright, you know what you did there?
What?
Solved the problem of miracles.
Thank you, walk on.
You're alright in my book.
It's ironic that a man who wanted us to tap
into the power that we all have within ourselves,
is thought of as some sort of divine being.
The point of Buddhism as far as I can see,
is to teach us that we're all capable of much
more than we might believe we are,
if we just concentrate on it, just put our minds to it.
I used to struggle to make sense of miracle stories.
How oceans could be parted.
How it was possible to walk on water.
But I think I was missing the point.
To believe in miracles is to believe there is more
to life than meets the eye.
To accept there could be something that connects us,
unites us.
So many souls pass through this world,
and as our paths cross miraculous things can
and do happen.
People get the breaks they always wanted,
people inspire one another, people fall in love.
And whether these events are orchestrated
by the hand of god, the power of the mind,
or just a one in a million chance,
I believe we should believe in miracles.
Because miracles however you define them help us to,
well they give us hope.
They drive us to create reality out of possibility.