Murid Memento Mori

The key texts for today's lesson are Montaigne's essay "That To Think As A Philosopher Is To Learn To Die" and the remarks on death in the Maqalat of Shams-ud-Din-i Tabrizi.

It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere. Prevision of death is prevision of liberty. He who has learned to die has unlearned servitude. To know how to die frees us from all subjection and compulsion. There is nothing evil in life for him who clearly understands that the loss of life is not an evil.

--Montaigne, Essais Bk. I, Ch. XX (tr. George B. Ives).

If the soul were in expectation of the fulfillment of its wishes from the other universe [of Non-existence], he or she would struggle to go there. Then death would not be death; rather, it would be life. Mustafa [the Prophet Muhammad], peace and blessings upon him, said, "The faithful do not die, really they immigrate from one universe to another." According to the individual situation, immigration is one thing; death is another.

--Shams-i Tabrizi, Maqalat, tr. Algan and Helminski, 21.