Samyutta Nikaya. Connected Discourses of the Buddha. Part IV. The Book of the Six Spheres (Salayatana Vagga)

Samyutta Nikaya, or «Connected Discourses of the Buddha», is the third of the four great collections of the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon. It consists of 52 chapters (samyutta), distributed across 5 books, or parts. Each chapter has a unique theme to which certain teachings (suttas) are associated, hence the name of this collection.

The fourth book, like the previous one, addresses sensual existence, but this time from a different perspective, turning to concepts such as the six internal and six external spheres of sense. They represent all the cognitive abilities of a person and the corresponding objects of knowledge, and therefore the Buddha referred to the spheres of sense as «All» and said that if anyone wanted to point to something other than this «All», they would not be able to do so.

Besides this main theme, other topics are also addressed in the Book of the Six Spheres. Among these texts, the suttas about the householder Chitta who reached high spiritual heights, conversations with chiefs, and facts about women are of particular interest.