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SN 12.44 Loka Sutta: The World

Buddha used the word "the world" as a synonym for dukkha. he is referring to a mental world (rather than a physical world)

for example, there is the word "lokuttara", which means "above the world or beyond the world", i.e., the enlightened state, free from dukkha. this does not refer to being in a spaceship

it means being in the world but untouched by the world, like a lotus rises out of the mud, unsoiled by the mud

"Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent [lokuttara], connected with emptiness — are being recited. We will lend ear, will set our hearts on knowing them, will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.' That's how you should train yourselves."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....007.than.html Monks, these eight worldly conditions spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions. Which eight? Gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. These are the eight worldly conditions that spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions.

Gain/loss,
status/disgrace,
censure/praise,
pleasure/pain:
these conditions among human beings
are inconstant,
impermanent,
subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don't charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming
& rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
Knowing the dustless, sorrowless state,
he discerns rightly,
has gone, beyond becoming,
to the Further Shore

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....006.than.html