Stories about coma
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about coma from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ask if she's still thereStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Counseling a woman whose mother is on life support, he advises sitting, holding the hand and asking whether she is still there. In a Chinese family in Malaysia/Singapore the…
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suppose your mother is in a coma in hospital for several months and there's no real possibility of of any cure and someone ask you should we turn off the ventilator should we turn off the life support system and as a Buddhist what should you you do cuz that's your mother as I said this her jaw dropped and she said wow you're good because her mother was in the hospital on a life support system in a coma and she'd been like that for quite a while I sort of nailed it but of course the advice which I give which is important for everyone to know is that if that's your mother or anyone close to you sit next to her hold her hand and even though she's in a coma ask her if she's there if she wants to go you know there's a lot of difference between a person who is just a dead body being kept Alive by the machines and a being who's still in that body just struggling to survive and live on there's a lot of difference there and if that's someone you love and know you can feel it you can feel that there's somebody there and if there's somebody there keep the venator going there's one of the uh people I know she told her story of what it was like being in a coma it's a great story because she made a full recovery and goes around telling her story in in public forums about what it's like to be in a coma for many days she said she went to a very very dark black place don't know for how long Timeless I think it was actually for several weeks I said what brought her back she said she heard the sound of Temple Bells by Buddhist temple bells that's how she described it where that came from who knows but that brought her out of the that darkness and soon into her body and when she was in that body she could not speak or move but she could see hear and feel everything which was going on around her but not being able to respond and after a while she saw her sons come to visit which of course delighted her but she could not say that she was being delighted she had no way of responding to what they said to their kisses or holding their hand but she got terrified when the doctor came and said that their mother had no chance of coming out of the coma and ask the children the nearest of kin for permission to turn off the life support she heard them saying that and she was thinking no I'm still here here don't turn it off but she couldn't move her mouth nor any other part of the body being in Singapore or it could have been I think it was in Malaysia sorry being a Chinese family the children said well it's the eldest son's decision and the eldest son said no don't leave me alone I want your help on this but of course no one wants to make such a decision to turn off the machine of your own mother so they passed her back to the eldest son and he had to choose whether his mother would die right there and of course she could not move her body certainly not her lips not even her eyes but she could certainly move her mind and she wished and willed and concentrated her mind to say say son don't don't don't I'm here and the son said no give her another day in that 24 hours she was able to move her hand enough to show the doctor that something was happening a recovery seemed to be happening and of course because you could tell that story she did make a total recovery and you wouldn't think that she had been in that situation if you saw her today
- The temporal bell that woke her from comaStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Angie Marksfield's auntie describes deep coma as blackness; what brought her out was sound — like the tickling of a temple/temporal bell.
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Angie Marksfield was there and her auntie would tell the story when she was in a coma. She went in a coma. She never told me exactly why she was in that coma but really really deep in a coma and obviously she came out of it. But her story of how she came out the first time was fascinating, like a firsthand description of what it's like and what happens. And she said she was in such a dark dark place, a blackness. And what brought her out was like sound. She thought it was a tickling of a of a uh a temporal bell