Synthesized answer
The provided passages do not fully explain what Schopenhauer means by "Denial of the Will to Live."
However, the passages do suggest that self-consciousness plays a role in this concept. When self-consciousness has been attained, a person can withdraw into reflection and become a spectator of events, even their own death [2]. This allows reason to master animal nature, enabling individuals to endure suffering or undertake dangerous actions with a certain detachment [2]. The passages also contrast this state with those who are "overcomers of the world" and voluntary hermits presented in Indian philosophy, or the "holy man of Christianity," who are described as being in a state of supreme suffering despite their virtue and holiness [3]. Furthermore, the passages mention that the will of the individual is constantly crossed by chance, antagonism, and the actions of others [5]. They also indicate that escaping suffering through suicide is rejected, with the "true reason" for this rejection to appear later in the system [4].
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
Denial Of The Will To Live, When Self-Consciousness Has Been Attained. Footnotes TRANSLATORS’ PREFACE. The style of “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung” is sometimes loose and involved, as is so often the case in German philosophical treatises. The translation of the book has consequently been a matter of no little difficulty. It was found that extensive alteration of the long and occasionally involved sentences, however likely to prove conducive to a satisfactory English style, tended not only to obliterate the form of the original but even to imperil the meaning.…
before, appears to him cold, colourless, and for the moment external to him; he is merely the spectator, the observer. In respect of this withdrawal into reflection he may be compared to an actor who has played his part in one scene, and who takes his place among the audience till it is time for him to go upon the stage again, and quietly looks on at whatever may happen, even though it be the preparation for his own death (in the piece), but afterwards he again goes on the stage and acts and suffers as he must. From this double life proceeds that quietness peculiar to human beings, so…
m, could never obtain life or inner poetic truth, but remains a wooden, stiff lay-figure of which nothing can be made. He cannot himself make use of his wisdom, and his perfect peace, contentment, and blessedness directly contradict the nature of man, and preclude us from forming any concrete idea of him. When compared with him, how entirely different appear the overcomers of the world, and voluntary hermits that Indian philosophy presents to us, and has actually produced; or indeed, the holy man of Christianity, that excellent form full of deep life, of the greatest poetic truth,…
ed by the most grievous sorrows, their aim, and will not allow a man to end his life in order to escape from suffering. Not one of them, however, was able to give the true reason for the rejection of suicide, but they laboriously collected illusory explanations from all sides: the true reason will appear in the Fourth Book in the course of the development of our system. But the antagonism referred to reveals and establishes the essential difference in fundamental principle between Stoicism, which is just a special form of endæmonism, and those doctrines we have mentioned, although both…
ii. c. 7, p. 134), that is, one ought to live with a due knowledge of the transitory nature of the things of the world. For as often as a man loses self-command, or is struck down by a misfortune, or grows angry, or becomes faint-hearted, he shows that he finds things different from what he expected, consequently that he was caught in error, and did not know the world and life, did not know that the will of the individual is crossed at every step by the chance of inanimate nature and the antagonism of aims and the wickedness of other individuals: he has therefore either not made use…