“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting any of the pious acts of my kin.”
This is #10 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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8. 조상님의 은혜를 잊고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting the favors of our ancestors.”
9. 부모님께 감사하는 마음을 잊고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting my heart full of thanks to my ancestors.”
10. 일가 친척들의 공덕을 잊고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
I would read this tenth affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting any of the pious acts of my kin.”
Weird, thunderstorm this afternoon. Barely above freezing, howling wind. And thunderstorm.
The students gave me pepero sticks. Today was 1111 = “pepero day.” A sort of crass, Korean, commercial, Valentine’s-type day. But the kids all got crunk on sugar. So it was cute, in a hyperactive way.
I had a third grader say something rather surprising, if not exactly “happy”: I asked him, “How are you?” and he answered, “I’m depressed.” This is not typical Korean third-grader vocabulary, though I know his English is pretty good. So I said, “Why?” and he said, shocking me, “I’m ugly.” I wasn’t sure what to say. Finally, I said, “I don’t really think so.” He’s kind of a dead-pan kid. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I felt kind of sad about it – even if it was just a strange joke.
[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.]
