On this account, the well-known first argument in MMK, the "Diamond Slivers",((In fact, the argument is only summarized very briefly in MMK 1:1, it is only from the ommentaries that we are able to flesh out Nāgārjuna‘s ideas. The commentaries also support claims about the centrality of this argument in Mādhyamika thought.)))appears rather strange, at first, as it seems to negate causation. The belief that "this being, that becomes...this not being, that becomes not" (S ii 28, 65; Macy 1995, 39)
constitutes the very foundation of the Buddha‘s teachings, and plays an important role in the doctrines of Dependent Co-origination, the Four Noble Truths, and Kárma to name a few. Moreover, causation seems to be given in experience, an empirical fact that most
people would accept.
The arguments Nāgārjuna sets out, however, are directed only towards a notion of causality that conceives of it as a relation between things with svabhāva, and later on, he will reaffirm the doctrine of Dependent Co-origination, linking it with emptiness itself.