a mediaeval book says " first learn to die and then second learn to live" elaborate your answer....?

Answer 1

This made me think about letting go of everything, like formatting your mind and your spirit almost in the same way as you can format a hard-drive of a computer. After that your life might be surprisingly clear and it might seem much easier to figure out what you're wanting from your life. I can easily imagine how it could change your whole perspective towards the gift of life.

Answer 2

One would have to know the context of the quote for a definitive answer. Therefore the name of the medieval (sic) book would have been helpful.
If this is a religious writer, particularly one of the Christian faith, perhaps he is suggesting that to die means that one must first learn how to discover that the material world is not important to one's spirit. In this sense, although material objects can be useful, even those things of the greatest beauty or value may lose their luster or value in time. Hence, to die would mean that one would cease to depend on the accumulation of material things as a measure of one's success. This sounds like a good modern day lesson also, but I digress.
To learn how to live, according to the dictum, would then be the resulting endeavor of distinguishing what was valuable after the other things had been put aside. Finding the ways of maintaining those things which are the most important is, after all, the most significant lesson of life.
It is interesting to note that this sort of advice might also be applicable to Buddhism and other spiritual efforts.

Answer 3

The "ars moriendi" (the art of dying) is a constant motif during the Middle Ages, along with the "memento mori" (remember that you will die), and the "homo viator" (the traveler) motifs. Man ought to live in preparation for death, because death will lead to personal Judgment of the his soul. "Learning to die" stresses the importance of prayer and good deeds. Life is viewed as a quest for salvation, and man as a pilgrim upon earth for while the body is submitted to time and temptation (evil), the soul will live eternally. Life on earth is also understood as a time of trial and tribulation, which man has to conquer. Early printers published anonymous small devotional books that were vastly popular. In the literature of the "ars moriendi" one important work is Thomas A Kempis' "The Imitation of Christ".

Answer 4

Medieval doctors also believed that slitting ones wrist was an effective cure for the flu, that someone who survived a drowning should be burned alive as a witch, and that the earth was the actual center around which the universe revolved. The medieval times were a poor well from which to draw inspiration, or wisdom.

Answer 5

In learning to die you discover the truly important things in life and what is actually trivial. Once you have learned this important lifes lesson it gives you the tools to live life to its fullest and to not sweat the small things.


Dum Vivimus Vivimas!

Answer 6

It's also a life lesson, "Learn to die" means to take away all the bad stuff within you, (which of course is tough), "Learn to live" means to be able to live on with life as good as possible, protecting what you you believe in, and (in this case) working hard at work for your boss, in this case the "king".

Answer 7

The quote is actually from an early 1970s TV show, "Kung Fu":

-- "Learn first how to live; learn second, how not to kill; learn third, how to live with death; learn fourth, how to die."

In truth (as any grasshopper will learn), one can't learn how to die until one has first learned how to live, has learned how to value the miracle and essense of what life is. As is the case in most eastern teaching - even one's created for a TV show (that was quite good in its first season) - the lesson is cyclical. When you learn how not to kill, you get a fresh perspective on how to live ... when you learn how to live with death, you get a fresh perspective on how to live. It is the neophyte - or to continue in the trappings of the Shao Lin Temple, the student - who thinks it is easy how to die and therefore wants to start there. Dying is the hardest thing. It brings one, as T.S. Eliot says, to the final conclusion: "Humility is endless."

Enjoy your stay here, grasshopper.

.

Answer 8

the first duty was to be prepared to die for your King the second duty was to be good enough that you didn't ( as a warrior ) not so deep after all ; they were practical people, since invaders tended to kill your family, duty was taken very seriously FOUND YOUR QUOTE ---SOCRATES SAID ::: TO LEARN TO LIVE WELL, ONE MUST FIRST LEARN TO DIE WELL ( you have a quote of a quote that's a bit mixed up ) knew it sounded v-e-r-y familiar so much for the dark ages ( 470-399 BC was a bit earlier )

Answer 9

i visit spend my very final day in this earth looking lower back on my existence and wishing that issues have been distinctive; i visit additionally initiate wishing i ought to pass lower back in time and alter each and every thing so as that my existence ought to be repaired and so as that i ought to initiate making up for this twelve months, final twelve months and each of the previous years i've got lost. when I initiate looking lower back on my existence i visit in user-friendly terms substitute into much greater depressed than I already am on the 2d via fact i visit in user-friendly terms be reminded of the certainty that not something good has took place in my existence yet that i've got in user-friendly terms had undesirable issues ensue to me, and that i visit in user-friendly terms be reminded of ways lots i've got suffered; i visit additionally be relieved that my existence is finally coming to an end via fact then i visit not be depressing or depressed as i visit be rid of each and every of the misery and melancholy. after i'm performed being depressing and depressed on the subject of the particularly unhappy existence i've got lived, i visit place in writing a suicide observe to my relatives and different relatives in the previous finally leaping suitable in front of an oncoming practice!

Answer 10

The quote probably means that its easier to just die, its harder and more advanced to learn to live. so that comes second, if your strong enough to survive