The World
 

The World

In what has this world arisen?
In what does it hold concourse?
On what depending — in what respect —
Does this world get oppressed?

In the six the world arose
In the six it holds concourse
On the six themselves depending
In the six it gets oppressed.

— SN 1.70 Is this sutta refering to one's personal world of experience - or to the exterior world as a place ? Does 'the six' refer to the six senses?


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Yes, these are the six sense bases. The phrase "the all", "the world", "this fathom-length world", and "this fathom-length body" all refer to the same thing, namely these six.

This sutta has attached the following note;
"21.
'World' is defined in Buddhism directly with reference to the six senses: "That by which one is conscious of the world, by which one has conceit of the world — that is called 'world' in the Noble One's discipline. And through what is one conscious of the world? Through what has one conceit of the world? Through the eye, friends, through the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body and the mind..." (S. IV. 95)."

Thank you Sobeh and Frank.

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I feel it referes to a personal world and a personal experience about it... Equanimity... and practice. the exterior world is as it is.

About the "six" I can not tell for shure but I agree with what Frank #3 has told.

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In "Two Kinds of Language " the late Bhikkhu Buddhadasa described ''world'' as follows:

Now we shall say something about the word "world" (loka). In everyday language, the word "world" refers to the Earth, this physical world, flat or round or however you conceive it. The "world" as the physical Earth is everyday language.

In Dhamma language, however, the word "world" refers to worldly (lokiya) mental states, the worldly stages in the scale of mental development-that is to say, dukkha. The condition that is impermanent, changing, unsatisfactory-this is the worldly condition of the mind. And this is what is meant by the "world" in Dhamma language.

Hence it is said that the world is dukkha, dukkha is the world. When the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths (ariya-sacca), he sometimes used the term "world" and sometimes the term "dukkha" They are one and the same. For instance, he spoke of:

- the world;

- the cause of the arising of the world;

- the extinction of the world;

- the path that brings about the extinction of the world.


What he meant was:


- dukkha;

- the cause of dukkha;

- the extinction of dukkha;

- the path that brings about the extinction of dukkha.

So in the language of the Buddha, the language of Dhamma, the word "world" refers to dukkha; suffering and the world are one and the same.

Taken another way, the word "world" refers to things that are low, shallow, not profound, and fall short of their highest potential. For instance, we speak of such and such a thing as worldly, meaning that it is not Dhamma.
This is another meaning of the word "world" in Dhamma language. "World" does not always refer simply to this Earth, as in everyday language. URL

Get Thee Quickly to the Loka Sutta, 12.44:


http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....044.than.html

Thanks stuka,

The sutta comes to complement Aloka #1 and #6.

Now, from Aloka #6 and stuka #7 I feel that it is both. There is a physical world but it can be experienced by a deluded mind or with mindfulness. The last happens when we have overcome Ignorance, Greed and Hate. In Zen we have the Ten Bulls where, after tammin our mind we "return to the marketplace"; it is the physical world but understood with mindfulness.

Thanks for shearing stuka,

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Thanks Stuka ! http://www.buddhismwithoutboundaries...lies/hands.gif

The sutta is describing our experience of the world. The Buddha's liberative teachings are entirely experiential, concerned with our experience. They do not attempt to explain how the world came about or how we got here. They do not proclaim "Life is Suffering"; they proclaim "There is suffering, and its cause is craving through ignorance." This is an experiential teaching, a teaching about how we experience the world.

If our experience of the world is clouded by ignorance, we suffer. With the quenching of ignorance comes the quenching of suffering.