“Buddha. I bow and turn today to the realm of Buddha now in generosity and kindness.”
This is the last of a series of 108 daily Buddhist affirmations that I have been attempting to translate. I started, almost accidentally, in September of 2010, and now I’ve reached the last one. I can’t guarantee the results, as I don’t really know Korean very well, but it’s been nice to try.
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106. 부처님. 저는 선지 식을 만날 수 있기를 발원하며 절합니다.
“Buddha. I bow and pray to be able to find the ways of the prophets.”
107. 부처님. 저는이 세상에 부처님이 오시기를 발원하며 절합니다.
“Buddha. I bow and pray that Buddha comes into the world.”
108. 부처님. 오늘 지은이 인연 아낌없이 시방 법계에 회향하며 절합니다.
I would read this one hundred eighth affirmation as: “Buddha. I bow and turn today to the realm of Buddha now in generosity and kindness.”
This was difficult. I didn’t know what to do with “인연” (probably “karma” in this context) – so I ignored it as a gratuitous extra noun. There was nothing for it to “attach to,” grammatically. I had all these adverbs (“in kindness,” “in generosity,” “today,” “now”) but no verbs to attach to.
So I finish with the same doubts and ambivalences as I started with. As I’ve said in other places in this blog, I’m feeling very discouraged about my progress in learning Korean. I’m not doing very well with it. Having these little translations to turn to over the last year has been a good way to recover some focus on this project, so I’m going to miss it. I’m fishing around for a replacement project, but so far I haven’t come up with anything.
“We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.” – Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country, 2005.
