Nāgārjuna‘s argument in the first verse can be summed up as the claim that there is no way of describing causation in a satisfactory manner if we assume that causes and effects exist with svabhāva. He demonstrates this using the catuṣkoṭi, a form of argument similar to the four alternatives discussed by the Buddha. To apply them to our example,the four options are: (1) the tree is caused by itself (i.e., the tree and the acorn are the same thing) (2) the tree is caused by another (i.e., the tree and the acorn are different); (3)the tree is caused by both itself and another (i.e., the tree and acorn are both the same and different); and finally, (4) the tree is caused by neither itself nor another (i.e., the tree was not caused by anything at all).
The first alternative cannot be accepted because if a thing were produced by itself,
its production would be both "senseless and endless" (Hopkins 1996, 58).
Some philosophers, in India as well as in the West, have affirmed that the effect exists in the cause "potentially"; in other words, the mature tree already exists, somehow, in the sapling and in the acorn. According to Nāgārjuna, this renders the notion of causality unsound—if the oak already existed in the acorn, what use would producing it be?
Something simply cannot give rise to itself; if it exists then it has already arisen and
cannot arise again. Otherwise, we would have to say that it was continuously arising, or
giving rise to itself.