We can understand abhidharma as the original Buddhist psychology, the body of Buddhist teachings on the science of mind. In brief, the abhidharma describes how the mind works, and why we don’t actually perceive reality as it is. Rather, our perception is clouded by past personal experience, habit and other causes and conditions. By understanding how the mind works, we can liberate ourselves from the habitual patterns that cloud our vision, coming into closer contact not only with how the world really is, but with who we really are.