Dear friends,

please allow me to expand one of the points:

The Buddha's teachings talk about Samsara, existence in a time-space (perhaps higher-dimensional) construct which we call the "world". I had an interesting discussion many years ago with a friend in university about our understanding of the "world", which I summarise as follows:

In the tribal times, the "world" is the tribe, anything else is "unknown", "danger", "death". As the nomadic tribe became territorial and expanded, the concept of "world" expanded too. And slowly, as cultures interacted, and as people and goods moved around, the "world" is no longer a single tribe or nation, but is the Earth as we came to call it.

metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Ong Yong Peng wrote:

2. The Buddha's teachings talk about Samsara, existence in a time-space construct which we call the world. I had an interesting discussion many years ago with a friend in university about our understanding of the "world", which I summarise as follows:

In the tribal times, the "world" is the tribe, anything else is "unknown". As the tribe became territorial and expanded, the concept of "world" expanded too. And slowly, as cultures interact, and as people and goods moved around, the "world" is no longer a tribe or a nation, but the Earth.

In our scientific age, Science helps us further the knowledge of "our world", namely, the Solar System, the Milky Way, the Universe, even multiverse.