Thursday, August 25, 2011

"A-va-lo-ki-tes-va-ra"



I usually wait until Fina is asleep to meditate but I'll occasionally try to sit with her and see if she follows.

She's never sat for more than about 20 seconds, she usually runs around me in circles, like I'm a pagoda goin' out'a style, chanting, "wowowowowowowowowowow..." (which is why I wait until she's asleep!) but she also likes playing with the objects on my shrine, especially the gold colored Jijang Bosal. Given that she's half Korean and a quarter Italian, it makes a 75% chance she likes him for his gold, but there could be some affinity there too!

She'll point to him and say, "Moji?", Korean baby talk for, "What's this?" but with more of a "What the Hell?"sort of tone. Cursing in Korean is often more in the delivery of the speech than with actually swear words, which probably gives most babies a dirty mouth! Anyway, I'll answer, "That's Ji-jang," and she'll repeat, "Moji?" five or six times.

One night, after asking Jijang's name a few more times, she pointed to the Amitah Buddha in the center and asked, "Moji?" so I replied, "Bu-da." We went back and forth, "Ji-jang, Bu-da, Ji-jang, Bu-da..." Until finally, she pointed over to the third statue on the shrine, "Moji?" I thought about just keeping it simple and telling her, "Gwan-Um" but thought it might be fun to challenge her a little... "That's A-va-lo-ki-teś-va-ra!"

"Huh?!" her head tilted to one side and though she didn't say it, her eyes definitely held a "What the Hell?" in them! She asked me a couple more times, then went back to the easier, "Bu-da."

Just to test if she was actually learning, I asked her, "Where's Jijang?" and she pointed to him, "Where's Buddha?", "Uh", with a point, and finally, "Where's Avalokiteśvara?"Again, "Uh," and she pointed to the right one.

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