“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting wherever I may be, whoever I may be.”
This is #5 out of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I am attempting to translate with my hands tied behind my back (well not really that, but I’m deliberately not seeking out translations on the internet, using only dictionary and grammar).
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3. 지극한 마음으로 승가에 귀의합니다.
“I turn to the Sangha [Buddhist community-of-faithful] with all my heart.”
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 would read the fifth affirmation (with the same reservations and caveats as the last one’s) as: “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting wherever I may be, whoever I may be.”
Fortunately, there is a lot of parallelism, from affirmation to affirmation. As a consequence, I could rely on the hard work invested in making sense of the fourth one to try to sort out this next one.
I’m still not comfortable with the connection between the main clause (second part of sentence, “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived”) and the preceding clause (first part, “forgetting …”) – not in this affirmation nor in my translation of the last one. But I don’t really see how it works – is the first clause subordinate or coordinate, or is it a clause standing as some kind of noun or adjective modifying or modified by “lived”?
[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, forgetting…”. The “forgetting 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.]
