Within the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, reality is approached as a field of “ultimate phenomena” (paramattha dhammas), and the first methodology is a radical analysis of experience into these basic units. All that is ordinarily taken as a “person” is reclassified into four ultimate realities: consciousness (citta), mental factors (cetasika), material phenomena (rūpa), and nibbāna. This shift from person-based language to dhamma-based analysis is supported by extensive categorization, especially in works such as the Dhammasaṅgaṇī, which divides phenomena into exhaustive and mutually exclusive classes. The same analytical spirit appears in the treatment of the five aggregates (khandhas), which show how form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness together make up what is mistakenly grasped as a self.

A second major methodology is the use of multiple classificatory grids—aggregates (khandha), sense bases (āyatana), and elements (dhātu)—to map the same experiential field from different angles. The twelve sense bases and eighteen elements, for example, classify experience in terms of internal and external bases and the corresponding consciousnesses that arise in dependence on them. These schemes are not merely descriptive; they are aligned with the framework of the Four Noble Truths, so that phenomena are also viewed in terms of dukkha, its origin, its cessation, and the path leading to that cessation. In this way, classification is always tethered to the practical task of understanding suffering and its end.

Equally central is the analysis of conditionality. Dependent origination (paṭicca-samuppāda) presents phenomena as conditioned events, while the detailed conditional analysis of the Paṭṭhāna lays out twenty‑four types of relations (paccayas) that show how dhammas support, influence, and give rise to one another. This conditional method is complemented by the examination of each dhamma in terms of its characteristic (lakkhaṇa), function (rasa), manifestation (paccupaṭṭhāna), and proximate cause (padaṭṭhāna). Through such scrutiny, each element of experience is located both in its own “profile” and within a wider network of causal interdependence.

Finally, the Abhidhamma employs a highly structured, almost mathematical style of organization. Numerical lists, matrices (mātikā), and systematic groupings of consciousness, mental factors, and material phenomena create a grid-like taxonomy of mind and matter. Consciousness is analyzed into distinct types and processes, mental factors are grouped according to their ethical and functional qualities, and material phenomena are broken down into specific kinds. This layered, interlocking methodology allows reality and experience to be seen not as a solid block, but as a finely articulated web of momentary, conditioned events, each precisely defined and situated within an ordered whole.