I experienced this in my own life. My mother fell into an irreversible coma. Doctors said she would never snap out of it, but they were able to prolong her life indefinitely. The cost was enormous. One day my mother appeared to me in my mind and very clearly told me that she was gone, that she had left the body a long time ago, and that I should let things take their natural course and allow her body to die.

SHIH-FU:

From the point of view of Buddhadharma, we should not put absolute faith in these psychic experiences. Meeting with spirits, with dead relatives, hearing voices, either directly or through a medium, none of these experiences is reliable. I am not saying they are untrue. I am saying they are unreliable. If you believe in this kind of phenomena, then it's possible you will always be looking for it, will grow attached to it, will depend on it, will depend on seeing the world in this way. Yes, it might be true, but it might also be something that arises from your own consciousness.

On the other hand, such experiences can be considered valuable in a religious sense. We cannot say that Buddhists should not have or do not have such experiences. A lot, in fact, do. But the attitude of Buddhists is that just because they experience something doesn't mean it is absolutely true.

STUDENT:

Let's suppose there is a body in an irreversible coma, and the person is deemed to be brain dead; that is, the brain's higher functions have ceased operating and there is no reasonable likelihood that they will resume operation in the future. All that works is the brain stem which controls life functions. Suppose also there is no supernatural contact with the spirit of the person directing someone to disconnect the machine. In other words, we have only modern medicine and our own judgment to go by. Isn't it more compassionate to disconnect the machine and let the body do what it would naturally do?