The Dharma is ultimately the abandonment of afflictions and obstructions to knowledge in a being's mental continuum. The way to attain this true cessation is to follow a true path. The means of communicating this understanding is the speech of Buddhas and Boddhisattvas, which in written form comprises the collection of scriptures. Both of these are also refered to as the Dharma.

Shortly after the Buddha's passing away, memorised collections of his teachings were recited in four different indian languages, including Sanskrit. Later these were translated into Tibetan, Chinese, Mongolian, Korean, Japanese and so forth.

The Buddha said to have given 84,000 instructions, with elaborate and all the afflictions and the means of overcoming them.