Stories about near-death experience
8 Buddhist wisdom stories about near-death experience from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Anita Moorjani: “I'm cured”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In Hong Kong, Anita Moorjani, riddled with cancers and expected to die, dies on the operating table. She sees and hears everything said (the doctors confirm it), floats out of…
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her experience while she was in hong kong she was uh indian but working in hong kong and brian joseph um walker was the her gp but she had so many cancers inside of her and all of those cancers which she had were literally killing her she had many operations and this operation was you know they think last chance for her they thought she was going to go and she did die on the operating table and when she died on the operating table she obviously came back again and then she told the story what it was like being first of all being able to see and hear everything which was being said the doctors confirmed it how the heck do you know that you were unconscious at the time and not only being able to see and hear everything but then floating out of her body and to this big beautiful light and those of you who heard me teach the deep meditation on retreats we call those nimiters in meditation beautiful lights what it is is a manifestation of your mind that's one thing which i disagreed with her on not sort of god who might feel like that but it's actually your own mind and when it's freed from the five senses it's very powerful and extremely blissful like being in the middle of pure love or pure bliss those meditation experiences which i said earlier they're such powerful happiness and and joys literally is blissing now very deeply and then when she came out afterwards she came out afterwards she didn't know how long she was in there she came with what we called in buddhism insight understanding but her main concern at the time obviously was her health her sicknesses her cancers and when she came out and became conscious again to the surprise of the doctors and they thought she would have died and then the first thing she said to the doctors is i'm cured and the doctors thought she was just being hallucinating because you know she had big tumours inside of her what do you mean you're cured and that's when afterwards she mentioned because i've understood the cause of my cancers and the cause of the cancers was the emotional stress of trying to live up to other people's expectations all the time like you your partner in life your children's expectation of you as a mother as a father as a grandparent your parents expectations of you your boss's ex expectations of you and more powerful your own expectations of you what do you think you should be doing how do you really feel that inner stress inside trying to live up to some standard and you don't know where those standards are from and when she saw that she was success a very successful woman when she saw that that was what was causing the stress which manifested in the tumors in her body she understood that was the reason why she had the cancer now she saw that and could understand the main cause of the cancers then she said i'm not going to try and live up to other people's expectations anymore i'm going to relax and just be me and you know that as soon as you if any of you ever do that you find out the you you end up being is much much much better than the you that you try to be all of that force you're not working well enough you're not good enough you're not trying hard enough you're not successful enough you could do more you could do better that is a terrible burden on your body which means that you work too hard injury don't work much at all you're still just trying too hard you still have that stress inside of your body and mind and she said that was what's causing my cancer
- Floating above the paddy fieldsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: An Australian soldier in Vietnam, going to help an injured mate, steps on a landmine that blows off his legs. After the intense pain, he wrote, he found himself floating above…
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that was a story of one of the state mp no the government in peace a long time ago and now what was his name again but anyway he was in vietnam during the vietnam war australian soldier and he was helping one of his colleagues who was injured and as he went to help his colleague he stepped on a land mine and blew off his uh his legs and because he blew off his legs he described what happened next i remember reading the article which he wrote about this experience obviously immense pain but the next thing he noticed was so intense pain the next thing you notice in his words which i can always remember was floating above the paddy fields of vietnam without a care in the world one of the most happy peaceful blissful experiences of his life and of course this was written by a politician who was always trustworthy come on when they talk about worldly things maybe you can doubt what they're actually saying but this was actually real honestly describing what he felt one of the most blissful peaceful experiences of his life but then he recalled that his wife back here in perth had just given birth to his first child a son and the thought came up it is not a kind thing just to die for his wife who had just given birth he had to come back for her so he next thing he noticed was being pulled back into his body and when he was in his body it was enormous pain again so much that he uh fainted and when he came to again he was in the hospital getting treated starting the long journey to um being a recovery he had to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and apparently that because of him in the federal parliament in canberra they did make sure there was adequate wheelchair access for everybody but anyway the important part of that story was just what happened when he left his body the first initial shock of the explosion which blew his legs off so peaceful so blissful so joyful
- She came back to see what her husband was up toStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A retreat participant tells how, dying in hospital while her husband raced to reach her, she was out of her body having a blissful time — and came back only because she wondered…
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I just remember one lady saying, "Oh, it was just so blissful and beautiful being out of my body," she was in a hospital with some terrible sickness. Her husband was racing to the hospital to try and catch her before she died, but she had already died, she was away having a wonderful time, but then she came back when she was wondering what her husband was up to. [laughter] I mean in a good way, I'm not saying that he was playing around, but you know whether he was worrying about her, whether he was coming, that brought her back. She told us afterwards, "That was the most wonderful experience of my life." I said, "Yeah, probably you like everybody else who's had those experiences are no longer afraid of death." "Yes," she said "I'm not afraid of death. Why should you be afraid of death when you know it's gonna be nice?
- The convict who left his body to watch footballStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A meditation student at Karnet Prison Farm tells Ajahn Brahm that as a boy of five or six, having surgery in what was then Yugoslavia, he died on the table and floated out of his…
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Oh, this one case was of this young man. There was a boy about five, six, seven years of age. He told me this story at length and he was having some operation. This was many years ago in Yugoslavia when Yugoslavia was this one country and he was having an operation and he died on the operating table and he described just how he was floating out of his body and he could see that the doctors who were operating on him were looking at the wrong place. They weren't seeing where the problem was. And so he said that's where he was like dying or was actually dead outside of his body. And then he said all he did a five or six year old boy that's how old he was. He just thought the doctors you know he couldn't speak outside of his body but just thought doctor don't look over here look over there. And immediately that's what the doctor did. And he shouted out hey here's a problem. And because they could see what the problem was that they um solved the problem and he was fine again. He he recovered. But he said to me and he told me this story. He was one of my students meditating in Caret Prison Farm many years ago. He was a a convict in the jail. And he said but he didn't really mind being a convict. He said because ever since that time he came back into his body but whenever he wanted to leave his body he could he could do the old astral traveling make up a mind-made body as we say in in Buddhism and he could leave his body. So he said whenever he wanted to watch a football match didn't matter what prison they put him in he just leave his body and go and watch. he wanted to if he wanted to go and see a a concert by someone in Perth, he didn't even need to to book tickets, he just go there in his astral body and just get, you know, front seat view. And the way he said it and all the other information he gave me, he said, "Yes, okay. I think that's pretty accurate what he was saying.
- The man who walked straight past the judgeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: From a German book a German-born monk translated aloud: a seven- or eight-year-old boy has a near-death experience, walking through a forest to a shed where a man checks a book —…
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A long time ago, there was a book coming around our monastery down in Serpentine. I don't know if it's still there. It was in German, it'd be great if it was translated into English. I don't know if it's been done. But one of our German monks, a German-born monk, he read it out to me in translation. It was a story of a young boy in Germany who had an out-of-the-body experience, just floating out of your body, near-death experience, he was only about seven or eight years of age. And the reason I remembered it was because of what this little boy learned from that out-of-the-body experience. He was walking through a forest, in Germany, forests are really important to people, so they live in the forest, their culture is born out of the forest. So that he was walking through a forest, having temporarily died, and he came to like a barn, like a shed, and it's typical the way that some people perceive that time when you left your body at the near-death or death, that he came to this guy who asked what his name was, and the guy looked in some book, they always say it's a book, these days if young people die, they find he just logs into a computer and checks your name, looked into a book, his name wasn't there, so he said, no you're not supposed to be dead, you'd better go back. But he said that before you go back, you can actually see how this all works. And so the next person who came to see if he really deserved to die or not was a farmer. And when the farmer came up, you know the guy, what's your name, oh yeah, your time's up, time you're dead, but said the guy who was with the book, and he said, have you ever killed anything, any animals? he said, oh no, no, no, maybe one or two, but no more than that. And the guy looked at this little kid and said, you see, even though he's dead, he still lies through his teeth, he was a farmer, he killed many animals. But as they were just talking to this farmer to see what he thought, where he is gonna go.. there was another man walked right past the shed, right past, and went up to what the little kid thought was heaven. And the kid said to the guy, aren't you going to stop him and ask him what he's been doing? And that's when this judge told this little kid, throughout that man's whole life, he hasn't judged anybody, therefore, we're not going to judge him.
- The tennis shoe on the window ledgeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A patient who floated out of her body during an operation later reports a tennis shoe on a high windowsill of the operating theatre. Staff say that's impossible — it's cleaned…
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now one of the interesting cases was of this uh person having an operation in a theater operating theater in london in uk somewhere i think it was in bristol i could be wrong there but anyway they floated up above their body and afterwards they said that when they came back and they recovered they said that in the operating theaters an old operating theater there was a tennis shoe on the windowsill there's a weird thing to say and i said of course there's no ted issue on the windowsill you know on the inside you know this place is cleaned every day it's an operating theater has to be sterile what's a tennis shoe doing up there but she said it was certainly up there they couldn't see it from the floor so someone actually got a ladder and when they actually went up on the windowsill what do you think they found the tennis shoe is a famous example of someone seeing something which should not have been seen
- The woman who refused to go backStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A woman who dies on the operating table meets a spirit telling her it isn't her time; she refuses — she's having too good a time — until the spirit throws her back into her…
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there's this one lady who died on the operating table and so she left her body looking at her body over there just a mess so off she went but apparently that she described it as meeting some Spirit and the spirit saying you know it's it's not your time you know you got to go back and she said no way I'm having too good a time I don't want to go back sorry and the spirit said but you have to go back I don't care about that I'm not going you know like people are pretty independent these days and you know you don't actually do what you're told by your parents or by the government or by God or anybody so Spirits you know go and get lost I'm having a good time so that degree of Independence know she didn't want to sort of go anywhere until eventually having this argument you you got to go back no way apparently she described because obviously she did go back that's why she could tell this story this Spirit sort of got hold of her and threw her back into her body and it just had all this aches and pains and heaviness again and she was really pissed off of that spirit I mean really big time so when she gave this interview said now when I die next time of course I would die eventually I'm going to find that guy and I you do know what I'm going to do to that guy what he did to me that's how you described it
- “Why did you call me a …?” — the surgeon's outburstStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A wealthy London woman with an expensive Harley Street surgeon dies for a few minutes on the table; the panicking surgeon swears at her. At his polite post-op visit she asks why…
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one of my favorite stories was of the very wealthy person in London Lon who was having a minor operation and because she was wealthy she had I think a doctor from Harley Street very expensive but she wanted the best if you got money why not get the best and fortunately she actually did need it because during the operation she died for a few minutes and if ever you get an expensive doctor you'll probably find he's always very polite to you but during the operation the doctor lost it you know this lady was dying and he was panicking and during the operation apparently he said he shouted out even though this lady was unconscious don't give up on me now you [ __ ] that's what he said be careful if you're a doctor or a nurse cuz what happened next was when he came around after the operation they saved her life they found out the and fixed it so she was fine but on the first visit of the surgeon after the operation he said in his very polite voice Madam we came Jolly close to losing you that time yes she said I know but why did you call me a [ __ ] which you can imagine what the doctor thought said you were dead at the time how'd you know that and then of course she told she wasn't dead well she was dead but she was conscious