This last point requires a little explanation. In Buddhist thought generally something is a cause because it produces its effect – if the cause is present then it does indeed bring about its result. If X causes itself then, having caused itself, X would be present again. Since X is the cause as well as the effect so, being present again, it produces the effect – that is, itself – again. And so on, ad infinitum. Buddhapalita continues: ‘Nor could it occur from another entity, because it would follow quite logically that everything could arise from everything else’. Entities are not produced by intrinsically existent, independently real, others. If X produced Y, and they are intrinsically distinct entities, then we have no actual explanation of causation, since X is equally intrinsically distinct from Z. If we call Y the effect of X, equally Z would be the effect of X, since in both cases the putative cause and effect are intrinsically quite distinct.