  The Buddhist analysis of mind and mental phenomena relies on the expansive taxonomies of the Abhidharma traditions, which seek to explain human experience by reducing it to its most fundamental elements. These elements (e.g., sensations, volitions, etc.) are effectively the irreducible units of experience that any analysis of persons must ultimately reveal. Breaking every experience down to its irreducible constituents holds the key to understanding both the dynamics of the mental and the resulting activities that are associated with the karmic process. But the ultimate aim of this reductive analysis is its overriding soteriological (or even therapeutic) concern: mapping the mental domain so that afflictive tendencies (kliṣṭa-manas) may be properly identified and countered.