Beopjangin reppu

The passing away of Venerable Beopjang of Jogye Order was given attention not only because of his standing as the head of the biggest Buddhist order of Korea but because he donated his earthly remains to scientifical and societal use so that the Buddhist cremation funeral tabisik was not held. Kyunghyang Sinmun, Chosun Ilbo (Korean, English), Hankyoreh (Korean, English) had editorials on the topic. Oranckay conveys the last message of Venerable Beopjang, written in Classical Chinese, with a Korean translation added by the Jogye Order. Oranckay has done the English translation (at this writing he says the translation is "in progress"). In the tradition of Hunjangûi karûch'im, with thanks to Oranckay for the inspiration, I'll also add my own translation. As the readers of this blog are surely aware of, I'm only a hunjang imposter, so the translation is from the Korean verse, with some hints from the commentaries of Oranckay's post. 我有一鉢囊 無口亦無底 受受而不濫 出出而不空 나에게 바랑이 하나 있는데 입도 없고 밑도 없다 담아도 담아도 넘치지 않고 주어도 주어도 비지 않는다 Minulla on reppu täyttymätön tyhjentymätön vaikka kuinka täyttäisi vaikka kuinka antaisi I've taken some poetic liberties with the lines in the name of the feeling of it (knowing that there's hardly anyone to challenge my choice - but wait a minute - this is a Classical Chinese poem, so that is possible...) Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: Koreanlanguage ∙ Korea-Finland ∙ Koreanculture