Dharma

Dharmas (Pali: dhammas):—For the Abhidharmikas, the ultimate components of existence, the elementary constituents of experience were called dharmas. These dharmas were seen as the ultimate entities or momentary events which make up the fabric of people's experience of reality. The conventional reality of substantial objects and persons is merely a conceptual construct imputed by the mind on a flux of dharmas. However, dharmas are never seen as individually separate entities, but are always dependently conditioned by other dharmas in a stream of momentary constellations of dharmas, constantly coming into being and vanishing, always in flux.

The four categories of dharmas in the Theravada Abhidhamma are:

1. citta (Mind, Consciousness, awareness)
2. cetasika (mental factors, mental events, associated mentality), there are 52 types
3. rūpa — (physical occurrences, material form), 28 types
4. nibbāna — (Extinction, cessation). This dharma is unconditioned  it neither arises nor ceases due to causal interaction.