While it can mean other things such as “way” or “method,” there are four chief ways in which “dharma” is used in Buddhism:

1. things—all the objects of experience that we can see, feel, hear, and touch, often translated as “phenomenon”;
2. the Buddha’s teaching, a use which is often extended to include Buddhist teachings and practices generally, and thus can mean Buddhism itself;
3. the truth that is taught in the Buddha’s teachings, especially the highest truth disclosed in the awakening of the Buddha; and
4. the reality that the truth reveals, that which enables and sustains all things in accord with interdependence.