Nigredo · Dharma · Chapter 15 of 48

1.2.3 The 72 Types of Entities

Can a finite map of experience reveal how a seemingly solid self and world are assembled—and where the map itself must finally be left behind?

Dharma · Chapter 3 of 12 Video discussion · 28:55 Abhidhamma taxonomy Published March 2026

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The book

The chapter in brief

The 72 Types of Entities turns the previous chapter’s broad account of conditioned reality into a mnemonic inventory. The course counts one category of consciousness, fifty-two mental factors and eighteen kinds of material phenomenon as the seventy-one components of conditioned experience; Nibbāna, treated as unconditioned, becomes the seventy-second. The purpose is practical rather than encyclopaedic: apparent persons and things are re-read as changing configurations so that identification with them may loosen.

The number seventy-two is the chapter’s selected teaching model, not the standard total of the later Theravāda Abhidhamma taxonomy. That scheme ordinarily lists eighty-two ultimate dhamma categories: one citta category, fifty-two cetasikas, twenty-eight rūpas and Nibbāna. The chapter reaches seventy-two by counting only eighteen kinds of materiality as possessing intrinsic nature. That choice—and the alchemical framing built around it—belongs to Dr Robinson’s synthesis.

Video guide

A useful palette, not a periodic table

The recording opens with the apparent solidity of a hand, cup or chair, then asks what remains when the seamless surface of experience is analysed into processes. Its painter’s-palette and Lego metaphors make the chapter’s intent clear: the list is not meant to compete with physics or chemistry. It is a contemplative classification of experience—an intermediate bridge between everyday talk of selves and things and the Buddhist investigation of conditioned phenomena.

The video next contrasts apparent reality with phenomena said to possess an individual characteristic. Space becomes the test case: it is presented as a concept dependent on boundaries rather than a separately existing component. “Intrinsic nature” needs care here. Within Abhidhamma discussion it refers to a dhamma’s characteristic and function, not to an independently self-existing substance. Conditioned dhammas arise in dependence on causes and relations; the analysis is designed to weaken reification, not install seventy-one miniature eternal objects behind appearances.

The mental side is divided into citta and cetasikas. Citta is the event of cognising an object; mental factors such as contact, feeling, perception, volition and attention arise with it and shape the character of that moment. The video’s celebrity-and-entourage metaphor makes the distinction memorable. Its practical payoff is equally important: “anger is present” need not harden into “I am an angry person”. However, the claim that these sequences occur “billions of times per second” is rhetorical rather than an established Abhidhamma measurement or scientific finding.

The account of materiality moves through the four great elements, five sensitive bases, four sense objects, heart-base, two sex phenomena, life faculty and nutritive essence. These are categories from a premodern phenomenological and commentarial system; earth, water, fire and air name qualities such as resistance, cohesion, temperature and motion rather than chemical elements. The traditional heart-base is a proposed physical support for mental activity in later Theravāda commentary. The video’s description of an electromagnetic vortex and its suggestion that this may anchor consciousness are modern speculative additions, not established neuroscience. Likewise, traditional sex phenomena should not be treated as a complete modern account of sex, gender or identity.

Nibbāna supplies the final contrast. In this Theravāda framework it is the one unconditioned dhamma, not another conditioned component or a material escape hatch. The recording sometimes gives the seventy-one conditioned categories the dramatic language of prison, simulation and machinery. Read more soberly, the map’s work is diagnostic: it asks whether anything within changing body and mind can sustain the burden of “I”, “me” and “mine”. Its liberating value lies less in believing a number than in observing conditionality directly.

Illustrated blueprint showing the course model of consciousness, mental factors, eighteen material phenomena and Nibbāna as the seventy-second entity
The chapter’s 72-part course map: one consciousness category, fifty-two mental factors, eighteen selected kinds of materiality and Nibbāna. The image is a conceptual overview; its small labels should be read alongside the chapter and the qualifications on this page.

Argument map

How the inquiry develops

Question the seamless object

A hand, cup or emotion feels singular until attention distinguishes the physical and mental conditions composing the encounter.

Use a provisional bridge

The taxonomy is openly presented as a mental construction whose value lies in carrying inquiry beyond ordinary reification.

Separate awareness from its colouring

Citta cognises an object while accompanying cetasikas supply feeling, recognition, intention, attention and ethical tone.

Analyse embodied conditions

The selected eighteen rūpas organise elemental qualities, sensory bases and objects, vitality, nutrition and other bodily conditions.

Distinguish process from identity

Anger, pleasure and perception can be observed as conditioned events rather than converted immediately into a fixed personal story.

Do not confuse map and territory

The count is a soteriological aid: it is meant to expose dependency and impermanence, not provide a modern scientific inventory.

Set the unconditioned apart

Nibbāna is placed outside the seventy-one conditioned types as the cessation of the processes sustaining suffering.

Book, video and tradition

What belongs to which layer?

The written chapter

Introduces the 72-part mnemonic: consciousness, fifty-two mental factors, eighteen kinds of materiality and Nibbāna, presented as a bridge beyond apparent reality.

The video’s expansion

Adds the hand, painter’s palette, Lego, celebrity entourage, operating-system and prison metaphors, then draws practical implications for identity and emotional reactivity.

Theravāda Abhidhamma

Supplies the four broad categories and the analysis of momentary citta with associated cetasikas, but its conventional later enumeration totals eighty-two rather than seventy-two.

The course’s synthesis

Selects eighteen rūpas, gives the count alchemical meaning and adds modern language about algorithms, energy, gender polarity and electromagnetic fields.

Clickable chapters

Navigate the video

Seven supplied markers fit within the verified final runtime of 28:55. The supplied 31:30 and 36:00 markers were omitted because they fall after the recording ends.

  1. 00:00Opening: Everything Has Components
  2. 02:00What Is an Entity?
  3. 06:10Why 72?
  4. 10:30The Three Groups of Reality
  5. 15:20Consciousness and Its Function
  6. 20:40The 52 Mental Factors
  7. 26:10The Nature of Matter

Terms for orientation

Expandable glossary

Dhamma
A multivalent Pali term that can mean the Buddha’s teaching, a quality, a phenomenon or an item within an analytical taxonomy. In Abhidhamma, dhammas are types and instances of conditioned mental and physical events, with Nibbāna classified as unconditioned. Calling them “entities” can help enumeration but may misleadingly suggest self-contained substances.
Paramattha dhamma
A phenomenon analysed as “ultimate” within the later Theravāda system, contrasted with conventional designations such as person, chair or hand. “Ultimate” here belongs to a particular Buddhist analytical framework; it does not mean that the category has been confirmed as a basic constituent by modern physics or neuroscience.
Sabhāva / intrinsic nature
Often translated as own-nature or individual characteristic. In Theravāda exegetical usage it helps identify a dhamma by its characteristic and function. It should not automatically be read as independent, permanent essence: conditioned dhammas arise and cease through supporting conditions.
Citta
An event of consciousness whose defining role is the cognising of an object. It does not arise alone: each citta occurs with associated mental factors and is directed towards a sensory or mental object. The chapter counts citta as one dhamma category while later manuals analyse many types of consciousness.
Cetasika
A mental factor that arises with citta, shares its object and helps determine the character of that moment. The later Theravāda system lists fifty-two, including seven factors present with every citta and others that are ethically variable, unwholesome or beautiful.
The seven universals
Contact, feeling, perception, volition, one-pointedness, life faculty and attention are the seven mental factors said in the later Theravāda manual tradition to accompany every citta. They are analytic functions within that system, not independently established neural modules.
Rūpa
Material or physical phenomena as analysed by Theravāda Abhidhamma. The standard later list contains twenty-eight kinds. The chapter selects eighteen as possessing intrinsic nature and excludes ten non-concrete or derived categories, producing its total of seventy-two.
Nipphanna-rūpa
The eighteen kinds of materiality commonly grouped as concretely produced or “real” rūpa in later Theravāda manuals. The remaining ten are called non-concrete because they describe delimitation, characteristics or modes of materiality. These technical labels should not be confused with a modern scientific test of what physically exists.
The four great elements
Earth, water, fire and air name the material qualities of resistance or solidity, cohesion, temperature and motion or pressure. They are premodern experiential categories, not the elements of chemistry. Touch is analysed through earth, fire and air; water or cohesion is not treated as directly tangible in the same way.
Heart-base
Hadayavatthu, the “heart-base”, is treated in later Theravāda commentary as the physical support for mind-consciousness. It is not explicitly identified as such in the canonical Abhidhamma and should not be equated with the modern anatomical heart, an electromagnetic vortex or a scientifically established seat of consciousness.
Sex phenomena
Two kinds of materiality traditionally associated with female and male characteristics in the commentarial taxonomy. The video reinterprets these as variable masculine and feminine polarities. Neither formulation is a complete biological, psychological or social account of contemporary sex and gender.
Nibbāna
The unconditioned dhamma in the Theravāda taxonomy: the cessation of greed, hatred and delusion and the end of suffering. It is not a soul, a location outside the universe or one more material component. Buddhist traditions differ in how they philosophically articulate the unconditioned.

Continue through the course

  • 1.2.2. The Matrix of Conditioned RealityThe preceding chapter introduces matter, consciousness and mental factors before the present chapter assigns them a memorable count.
  • 1.2.4 ConsciousnessThe next chapter examines the types and functions gathered under the present page’s single citta category.
  • 1.2.5 The Mental FactorsDevelops the fifty-two cetasikas that accompany and colour consciousness.
  • 1.2.6 MaterialityReturns in greater detail to the rūpa categories compressed into the present chapter’s eighteenfold selection.
  • Nigredo: DharmaThe section index for the twelve chapters that develop the course’s map of conditioned experience and liberation.

Context beyond the course

External reference points

A two-minute observation

From “my experience” to present conditions

Rest a hand on a table or on your knee. Notice resistance, temperature or movement. Then notice the knowing of that contact, its pleasant, unpleasant or neutral tone, the recognition of what is being touched and any impulse to adjust.

There is no need to decide whether the chapter’s full taxonomy is correct. Simply test its practical proposal: does separating one apparently simple moment into physical quality, awareness and mental colouring alter how solid or personal it feels?

This page accompanies Nigredo, Part One of A Course in Modern Alchemy, published by Dr Simon Robinson at drsimonrobinson.com. The chapter and video present Dr Robinson’s interpretive synthesis. Theravāda Abhidhamma, historical alchemy, modern psychology, neuroscience and contemporary accounts of sex and gender retain distinct methods and meanings. The material is educational and contemplative, not medical, psychological, psychiatric, therapeutic or spiritual advice. Traditional attainment maps elsewhere in the course are provided for study and should not be treated as confirmation of anyone’s status. This page guides the book and video; it replaces neither and makes no claim of universal authority.

Map. Not master.