“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting my ties to all those things that I am able to eat.”
This is #12 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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10. 일가 친척들의 공덕을 잊고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting any of the pious acts of my kin.”
11. 배울 수있게 해 준 세상의 모든 인연들을 잊고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
“I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting any of all the origins of the world that can be learned.”
12. 먹을 수있게 해 준 모든 인연들을 잊고 살아 온 죄를 참회하며 절합니다.
I would read this twelfth affirmation as: “I bow in repentance of any misdeeds lived, forgetting my ties to all those things that I am able to eat.”
This is not a call to fast, nor a commitment to disregard starvation. It’s a call to renounce one’s ties to food – not to renounce food. It’s a hard distinction. Perhaps easier to understand at a philosphical level than at a pragmatic one. Since my personal interest in Buddhism lies more at the pragmatics than in any type of abstraction, this is an important puzzle to solve.
[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.]
