The nine apertures

Great work :clap::clap: amazing people here. :+1::v:

Btw the notion of nine openings appears already in the Atharvaveda (AV 10.2.28-33). So the Buddhist concept continues an older view of the body and doesn’t refer to a concept or ingenuity of the Buddha.

In the AV the ‘fort of Gods’ (devānāṃ pūr) has eight circles and nine portals (the bodily openings) and a golden treasure chest. In the chest there is an ‘animated being’ (ātmanvat) with three spokes (tryara) and three supports (tripratiṣṭhita) and Brahma has passed within the fort. This image might have inspired the metaphor in SN 35.245.

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Which specific part of SN35.345 you were thinking of?

https://suttacentral.net/sn35.245/en/sujato

P.S.: thanks for pointing me to this sutta, very interesting! :slight_smile:

At the end we have the metaphor of the city and its six gates (vs. the city-of-gods with its nine
portals).
You’ve got a typo, I meant SN 35.245.

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I could not find a sutta #245 within SN45?
https://suttacentral.net/sn45-oghavagga

typos accumulated :slight_smile: SN 35.245

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You mean this part minus the last .

‘City’ is a term for this body made up of the four primary elements, produced by mother and father, built up from rice and porridge, liable to impermanence, to wearing away and erosion, to breaking up and destruction.

‘Six gates’ is a term for the six interior sense fields.

‘Gatekeeper’ is a term for mindfulness.

‘A swift pair of messengers’ is a term for serenity and discernment.

‘The lord of the city’ is a term for consciousness.

‘The central square’ is a term for the four primary elements: the elements of earth, water, fire, and air

Interesting. Thats actually 10 things. If you see city that is body as one. And the 4 elements. Like I thought before what the 4 wheels meant. And last is just liberation. Ok . Guess it’s explained in different ways.