Caveat: 6) 나의 몸을 소중하게 여기지 않고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다

“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, not regarding my body as something dear.”

The parallelism continues. Maybe, at this rate, I’ll figure out what the grammar is trying to do. Out of 108 affirmations, I’m now on number six.


4. 나는 어디서 왔는가, 어디로 갈 것인가를 생각하지 않고 살아온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
     “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds  lived, wherever I think I may have come from, wherever I think I may go to.”
5. 나는 누구인가, 참 나는 어디있는가를 망각한 채 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
     “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting wherever I may be, whoever I may be.”
6. 나의 몸을 소중하게 여기지 않고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.

I would read this sixth affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, not regarding my body as something dear.”

The first clause seems to literally say, “and not regarding my body preciously.” I settled on the above both with a mind to keeping the parallelism with the previous two affirmations, and to try to make sense of it. I’m not sure that I didn’t take too many liberties with the meaning, though.

[UPDATE: So it occurs to me, on rereading this much later, that I have misunderstood this aphorism – this one, and all those that have the same structure “…misdeeds lived, not regarding…”. The “not regarding my X” is in fact an example of the “misdeeds lived” – which is to say, you’re repenting for failing to experience the feeling in question.]

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