Dhammas/Dharmas: Pali and Sanskrit terms meaning “to support” or “to keep or maintain,” in the Abhidhamma texts they refer to the individual elements or factors, both physical and psychological, that are causally responsible for the physical world and our experience of it. In a certain sense, they are the component “parts” from which all of reality originates.

Madhyamaka: Indian Mahayana Buddhist school, whose name means roughly, “middle way,” traditionally thought to have been founded by Nagarjuna. Its central metaphysical claims focused on the idea of “emptiness” or sunnatta/sunyata.

Paticca-Samuppada/pratitya-samutpada: Variously translated as, “dependent arising,” “dependent origination,” “conditioned co-production,” “co-dependent origination,” “inter-dependent-origination,” or “interdependent arising,” all of these refer to the Buddha's account of causality. In short, this cluster of terms refers to the law-governed dynamics of change in which the events or happenings in the world and the mind are causally conditioned by and dependent on other processes, events, or happenings.

Sabhava/Svabhava: Pali and Sanskrit terms meaning “own-being,” “self-being,” substantial “self-existence,” or “intrinsic nature,” it is that by which phenomena or the dhammas are thought to exist independently of one another.

Yogacara: Indian Mahayana Buddhist school, whose name means, “Practice of yoga,” and also known as the Vijnanavada or “Way of Consciousness” school, it focused on the nature and activities of consciousness in understanding reality.