The Buddhist path navigates a profound understanding of reality often expressed through the doctrine of the Two Truths: conventional truth (the world of appearances, causality, and karma) and ultimate truth (emptiness, the lack of inherent existence). A common point of confusion, as highlighted in discussions, is how these two can coexist without contradiction. This article, drawing from a previous synthesis that underscored the necessity of clarifying karma's functionality despite its emptiness, aims to demonstrate—based on classical Madhyamaka masters and contemporary insights—that emptiness and Dependent Origination are not only compatible but are inseparable, forming the core of the Middle Way. It will show that the empty, illusory nature of phenomena is precisely what allows them to function causally, and that this very insight into Dependent Origination is the gateway to realizing ultimate truth, not a negation of ethical and practical engagement with the world.

Overview: The Causal Dance of Empty Appearances

The great Madhyamaka masters, including Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti, Jamgön Mipham, Je Tsongkhapa, and Longchenpa, consistently teach that all perceived phenomena—from the vivid red of a petal to the subtle workings of karmic imprints and even the causal chain of the Four Noble Truths—can only function because they are empty of any intrinsic, self-powered core (svabhaˉva). Appearances are likened to "water-moons": they arise dependently, manifest, and participate in causal processes, yet they utterly lack inherent substance. Conversely, the notion of a self-powered, independent essence is a "rabbit-horn": a conceptual fiction that never appears and has no function. Holding these two insights together—the conventional reality of causal display (appearance) and the ultimate reality of essencelessness (emptiness)—constitutes the Middle Way. This path skillfully avoids the extremes of nihilism (denying conventional reality and efficacy) and reification (attributing inherent existence to phenomena). This article will explore these principles, integrating full classical passages and scholarly insights to provide a reference-rich exploration.

1. The Two Truths: An Inseparable Union of Emptiness and Interdependence

The perception of duality between ultimate truth (emptiness) and conventional reality (Dependent Origination, karma), where one might seem to negate the other, is a common hurdle. However, as noted in pertinent discussions, in Buddhism, the Two Truths are inseparable. This inseparability is key.

Khamtrul Rinpoche, in The Royal Seal of Mahamudra, Volume 2, elucidates this:

“The meditation of inseparable phenomena and emptiness is called “emptiness endowed with the supreme aspect.”... its unceasing radiance arises as the relative level of all kinds of interdependence, so it is known as emptiness having the core of interdependence and interdependence having the nature of emptiness... In the Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way it is said: ‘Anything that doesn’t arise dependently / Is a phenomenon that has no existence. / Therefore anything that is not empty / Is a phenomenon that has no existence.’ And as said in the Commentary on Bodhichitta: ‘It is taught that the relative plane is emptiness, / And emptiness alone is the relative plane.’”

Jason Parker (2019) also emphasizes this union:

“A lot of talk on here lately about how lame relative reality is vs how awesome ultimate reality is. Apparently an omniscient master is supposed to see how both the relative and the ultimate exist at the same time in a Union of Appearance and Emptiness. It's because everything is dependently arisen that it can be seen as empty. Not even the smallest speck exists by its own power.”

Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso wrote in the Beacon of Certainty:

If one has the eyes of the authentic view that realizes the inseparable reality of dependent origination... one will be extremely confident in the arising of the nature of emptiness as the infallible relativity of cause and effect. To the extent that one develops its power as an antidote, objects of abandonment—emotional afflictions and concepts—will decrease. Even if one does not meditate on it specifically, great compassion will arise effortlessly...

This non-dual understanding means that the ultimate, empty, luminous nature of reality is not contradicted by the functioning of karma; rather, karma functions precisely within, and as an expression of, this empty, radiant nature.

2. The Nature of Appearances: Radiant Conventionality and Seamless Designation

The Madhyamaka analysis begins by deconstructing the apparent solidity of everyday objects. Candrakīrti, in his Madhyamakāvatāra, famously uses the seven-fold reasoning to show that a "chariot" cannot be found in its parts, separate from them, or in their collection. It is a dependent designation.

“Just as the term ‘chariot’ is applied to a collection of wheel, axle, body and so on, so the designation ‘self’ (or ‘flower’) is applied to aggregates that lack any core.” (Madhyamakāvatāra VI.151)

Nāgārjuna, in his foundational Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK), generalizes this principle, equating the dependently arisen nature of things with emptiness and dependent designation itself:

Whatever is dependently co-arisen / That is explained to be emptiness.

That, being a dependent designation, / Is itself the middle way.

Something that is not dependently arisen / Such a thing does not exist.

Therefore a non-empty thing / Does not exist.

 (MMK 24:18-19)

This raises the fundamental question that stumps essentialist thinking: How can conventions function at all if they are empty and lack any true, inherent existence?

The answer requires moving past the subtle misunderstanding of designations as mere labels "overlaid" onto a raw, neutral, pre-existing reality. The Madhyamaka understanding is far more profound. Designations are not just symbols layered over neutral experience; instead, they are "inter-fused—interwoven into the very fabric of what we call 'reality'."

This "seamless fusion" is not limited to the immediate object and its name. It includes the entire network of dependently designated conditions across what we conceive of as "space-time" as well as “lifetimes.” The designation is not merely fused with the sensory experience, but is inseparable from the vast web of causes, effects, and contextual frameworks that allow the phenomenon to be intelligible at all.

This is the radiant power of emptiness in action. Designations don't obscure a "real" world; they are the very movement by which an empty reality appears as a functional, coherent, and vivid world. It is not that conventionality is a lesser truth to be discarded, but that it is the very field and form of awakening—the living, responsive, and luminous articulation of emptiness itself. As Nāgārjuna states, these empty, designated phenomena are what constitute our world:

"In brief from empty phenomena

Empty phenomena arise;

Agent (cause), karma (action), fruits (effect), and their enjoyer (subject) -

The conqueror taught these to be [only] conventional.

Just as the sound of a drum as well as a shoot

Are produced from a collection [of factors],

We accept the external world of Dependent Origination

To be like a dream and an illusion.

That phenomena are born from causes

Can never be inconsistent [with facts];

Since the cause is empty of cause,

We understand it to be empty of origination."

3. The Efficacy of the Merely Designated: The Imagined Self and the Karmic ‘Debt’

This leads to a subtle and critical point in Madhyamaka: if the "self" or "agent" is just a dependent designation, how can it be the performer of actions and the experiencer of karma? The Prāsaṅgika school, particularly as clarified by Candrakīrti and Tsongkhapa, asserts that all causal efficacy is based precisely on this nominal, designated status.

Ācārya Malcolm Smith clarifies this by explaining that the ingrained "I-making habit," which is the fundamental knowledge obscuration, has no real existence as a self, yet it is this very habit that functions as the conventional agent of karma and its recipient, "even though the 'I' it imputes does not exist at all."

This naturally raises the question: How does an action performed by this designated "I" persist through time to bring about a future result? To explain this, Madhyamaka masters like Nāgārjuna examined various contemporary theories. According to Malcolm Smith's analysis of Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (specifically Chapter 17), Nāgārjuna systematically rejects theories such as a karmic seed (vaˉsanaˉ) simply reproducing itself or a static trace remaining unchanged in the mindstream.

Ultimately, Nāgārjuna settles on the most reasonable conventional explanation available to him, one proposed by the Ārya-sammitya school and consistent with the Buddha's own words. This theory posits that an action creates an intangible dharma called avipraṇaˉsˊa (lit. 'non-disappearance'). As Malcolm explains, this functions like a 'debt' or, in modern terms, a financial 'bond'. It is not a tangible 'thing' that is carried in the mindstream, but an indelible, abstract obligation that persists until it is 'paid'—that is, until the karmic result ripens and is experienced. He notes that the Buddha himself "likened action to a debt," and that among the various theories, this is the one Nāgārjuna accepts as the most reasonable conventional model before proceeding with his ultimate analysis.

It is crucial to understand that while this 'debt' model is the most coherent conventional theory, from an ultimate perspective, Nāgārjuna shows that this entire transaction is an "illusion created by an illusion." The illusory 'I' incurs an illusory 'debt' which ripens as an illusory experience. This sophisticated layering allows Madhyamaka to robustly affirm the lawful process of karma on the conventional level without contradicting its ultimate, empty nature.

Malcolm provides a brilliant, practical example that bridges this idea of an obligation attached to a designated entity:

"No, it is an imagined, nonexistent self that causes and experiences everything, for example, when a car is in accident, it is the imagined car for which one pays the damages, not the wrong view of the imagined car."

This highlights a key distinction: our transactions and responsibilities—whether karmic or legal—pertain to the conventionally designated object (the "car" or the "self"), not to our philosophical view about it. The "car" for which we pay damages is a functional, conventionally valid entity, even though it lacks any ultimate, findable essence. Likewise, the "self" that experiences the ripening of the karmic "debt" is the dependently designated, imagined self of our conventional world.

This principle of nominal efficacy is not confined to the self. As John Tan notes, it applies to all functionalities. Modern analogies make this clear:

• Fiat Money: Paper or digital currency is empty of any intrinsic value. It is a pure convention, a dependent designation based on collective trust and governmental systems. Yet, this merely nominal "money" has immense causal efficacy, capable of building global economies or causing them to collapse.
• Gravity in Physics: In the everyday world, Newtonian gravity functions as a perfect explanation and has predictive causal power. We use its formulas to send probes to Mars. Yet, according to Einstein's General Relativity, gravity is not a "force" pulling objects but a curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy. The Newtonian concept is a conventionally valid and causally effective model, even if it is not the ultimate description of reality.

This understanding reveals the error of other philosophical schools, including some non-Prāsaṅgika Buddhist ones, who mistakenly believe that there must be a "real referent" or some substantial basis for something to have causal efficacy. The Prāsaṅgika view turns this on its head.

4. Two Families of Illusion: The Functional Water-Moon and the Non-Existent Rabbit-Horn

To further clarify how empty phenomena can function, Madhyamaka employs various analogies. A key distinction is made between "conventionally valid" illusions and non-existent fictions:

Jamgön Mipham, in his commentary on Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatāra, explicates this contrast with reference to karmic causality:

“Although virtuous and non-virtuous deeds are alike in lacking inherent existence, an unripened action will still ripen... Just as a patient with an ocular disease may see black lines [that appear and seem to function visually for that patient] that nevertheless disappear once the malady is cured, so too karmic seeds operate once and then cease. A rabbit’s horn, by contrast, never appears at all.” (Adapted from Introduction to the Middle Way, pp. 122-123)

Mipham further elaborates in his auto-commentary:

“All illusory objects—rabbit horns, black lines, water-moons—are equal in lacking inherent nature. Yet an ocular patient sees black lines, and these appearances condition a matching consciousness; they are functional [conventionally, for that perceiver]. A rabbit horn never appears, hence is non-functional. Likewise, virtue and non-virtue are equally unreal [i.e., empty of inherent existence], yet one yields happiness and the other suffering."

This illustrates that conventional phenomena, though empty like a water-moon, are not nothing; they appear and have specific functional capacities within the dependent web of reality. The illusion of inherent existence (svabhaˉva), however, is like a rabbit's horn—purely imaginary, not found even conventionally, and has no functional capacity. Nāgārjuna’s MMK 15 insists that if something were inherently existent, it would be as impossible to arise or cease as a rabbit’s horn; hence svabhaˉva is denied both ultimately and conventionally.

On the other hand, Indian exegesis links the water-moon to arthakriyaˉ (“pragmatic efficacy”): what appears empty can still perform a function, like a conceptual designation allowing trade in “fiat” currency. Because its appearance depends on multiple conditions (water, light, viewpoint), the image is vivid yet collapses under analysis—just as persons depend on the skandhas and labeling.

5. Emptiness as the Very Condition for Causal Efficacy

Contrary to the assertion that only things possessing an intrinsic nature (svabhaˉva) could function, the Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka reverses this. It is precisely because phenomena are empty of inherent existence that they can arise, change, and interact. As scholar Jay L. Garfield summarizes: "Nāgārjuna’s point is not that empty things are inefficacious, but that only because they are empty can they function; were they to possess intrinsic nature they would be inert.”

If phenomena possessed a fixed, independent, intrinsic nature, they would be immutable and causally inert. Nāgārjuna makes this point powerfully in his Vigrahavyāvartanī:

“Where emptiness applies... the causal efficacy of convention applies;

where emptiness does not apply... convention has no power.” (Vv 71, adapted)

6. The Status of Dependent Origination: The Gateway to and Expression of Ultimate Truth

While conventional reality (including Dependent Origination) is 'relative truth' and emptiness is 'ultimate truth', Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka presents a profound unification. He identifies the correct understanding of Dependent Origination with the realization of emptiness and the Middle Way, affirming this unified insight as the central teaching.

As seen in MMK 24:18, the two are presented as synonymous aspects of a single realization. This doesn't mean Dependent Origination is an ultimately existing entity. Rather, for Nāgārjuna, the correct discernment of how all phenomena are dependently co-arisen—and thus devoid of inherent existence—is the direct realization of their emptiness.

Ācārya Malcolm Smith's clarification is pivotal: "The only way to the ultimate truth (emptiness) is through the relative truth (dependent origination), so if one’s understanding of relative truth is flawed... there is no possibility that ultimate truth can be understood and realized."

Therefore, for Nāgārjuna, the correct insight into Dependent Origination is the gateway to, and the expression of, ultimate truth.

7. Karmic Causality as a Dependently Arisen, "Water-Moon" Process

The Madhyamaka understanding of karma exemplifies this:

• No Infinite Production: A karmic seed, once ripened, is exhausted for that fruition.
• No Randomness (Specificity): There is a lawful order where virtuous causes lead to pleasant effects and non-virtuous causes to painful ones.

The Buddha called the full extent of karma acintya—"inconceivable" for an ordinary mind—but the general principle is a cornerstone of the path.

8. Upholding Conventional Reality: Karma, Ethics, and the Path of Practice

Misunderstanding emptiness can lead to nihilism. Longchenpa, in Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind, powerfully refutes this:

    Those who scorn the law of karmic cause and fruit

    Are students of the nihilist view outside the Dharma.

    They rely on the thought that all is void;

    They fall in the extreme of nothingness

    And go from higher to lower states.

    They have embarked on an evil path

    And from the evil destinies will have no freedom,

    Casting happy states of being far away.

    ”The law of karmic cause and fruit,

    Compassion and the gathering of merit -

    All this is but provisional teaching fit for children:

    Enlightenment will not be gained thereby.

    Great yogis should remain without intentional action.

    They should meditate upon reality that is like space.

    Such is the definitive instruction.”

    The view of those who speak like this

    Of all views is the most nihilist:

    They have embraced the lowest of all paths.

    How strange is this!

    They want a fruit but have annulled its cause.

    If reality is but a space-like void,

    What need is there to meditate?

    And if it is not so, then even if one meditates

    Such efforts are to no avail.

    If meditation on mere voidness leads to liberation,

    Even those with minds completely blank

    Attain enlightenment!

    But since those people have asserted meditation,

    Cause and its result they thus establish!

    Throw far away such faulty paths as these!

    The true, authentic path asserts

    The arising in dependence of both cause and fruit,

    The natural union of skillful means and wisdom.

    Through the causality of nonexistent but appearing acts,

    Through meditation on the nonexistent but appearing path,

    The fruit is gained, appearing and yet nonexistent;

    And for the sake of nonexistent but appearing beings,

    Enlightened acts, appearing and yet nonexistent, manifest.

    Such is pure causality’s profound interdependence.

    This is the essential pith

    Of all the Sutra texts whose meaning is definitive

    And indeed of all the tantras.

    Through the joining of the two accumulations,

    The generation and completion stages,

    Perfect buddhahood is swiftly gained.

    Thus all the causal processes

    Whereby samsara is contrived should be abandoned,

    And all acts that are the cause of liberation

    Should be earnestly performed.

    High position in samsara

    And the final excellence of buddhahood

    Will speedily be gained. 

9. The Union of Appearance and Emptiness: Je Tsongkhapa's Insight

Je Tsongkhapa powerfully emphasized understanding appearance and emptiness as an inseparable unity. In his Three Principal Aspects of the Path, he warns:

11 “The knowledge that appearances arise unfailingly in dependence,

And the knowledge that they are empty beyond all assertions—

As long as these two appear to you as separate,

There can be no realization of the Buddha’s wisdom.

12 Yet when they arise at once, not each in turn but both together,

Then through merely seeing unfailing Dependent Origination

Certainty is born and all modes of misapprehension fall apart—

That is when discernment of the view has reached perfection."

In his masterwork, In Praise of Dependent Origination, Tsongkhapa hails this unified insight, extolling the teaching on dependent arising as the "king of reasonings" for establishing emptiness.

10. Conclusion: The Middle Way – Living the Two Truths Non-Dually

The Madhyamaka teachings consistently demonstrate that phenomena like the "self" and karmic seeds are "water-moons": vivid, conventionally valid, participating in causal relationships, yet utterly hollow of intrinsic nature. Inherent existence is a "rabbit-horn": a non-functional fiction.

It is precisely because phenomena are empty of such an inherent nature that they can arise, change, and interact. This understanding is not a denial of conventional reality but its deepest affirmation, revealing the very mechanism that makes ethics, meditation, karmic consequences, and ultimately, liberation possible. Understanding Dependent Origination as the direct expression of emptiness is to perfect the view—the Middle Way that transcends all extremes, leading to the indivisible union of wisdom and compassionate action.

(Additional Insights from Discussions)

• John Tan: "Sentient beings in ignorance tend to seek truly existent entities to attribute causal efficacy to them. In their confusion, they wrongly conclude that since conceptual constructs do not exist inherently, they lack causal efficacy and significance. This view is inverted... The mind that grasps at substantiality fails to comprehend how phenomena, being empty of inherent existence, can still function and possess causal efficacy. This failure arises because the 'framework of essentiality' obstructs the 'logic' that only phenomena empty of inherent existence can arise dependently and thus have causal efficacy."
• Malcolm Smith: "Thorough knowledge of relative truth is ultimate truth; for this reason the two truths are mutually confirming and not in contradiction at all... The ultimate truth is that neither you, the child, nor the candy exist inherently. As QQ pointed out, whatever is dependently originated, that is empty and dependently designated. The two truths are inseparable."
• Exchange on the Heart Sūtra:
  • Queequeg: "I don't think its any sort of conventional view. As I understand, its the view taught in, for instance, the Heart Sutra: There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no end to suffering, no path to follow."
  • Malcolm Smith (replied): "Which actually means: There is suffering, a cause of suffering, an end to suffering, a path to follow. Why? 'Matter is empty, emptiness is matter; apart from matter there is no emptiness; apart from emptiness there is no matter...' The Heart Sūtra is merely saying there is no inherent suffering, cause, end, or path, and that the two truths, samsara and nirvana, etc., are inseparable."
• John Tan: "A substantialist mindset thinks that unreality has no consequences. However, in the worldview of a non-substantialist, nothing is substantial, and that is why there is pain, suffering, and all these consequences. So, you have to understand why the conventional is so important: because sentient beings mistakenly believe you need true existence to have causal efficacy. They think that because there is no true existence ultimately, therefore, there are no consequences."

(Appendix: Selected Full Primary Passages)

• Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK) 24.18-19:

  Whatever is dependently co-arisen / That is explained to be emptiness.

  That, being a dependent designation, / Is itself the middle way.

  Something that is not dependently arisen / Such a thing does not exist.

  Therefore a non-empty thing / Does not exist.

• Candrakīrti, Madhyamakāvatāra VI.151:

  “Just as the term ‘chariot’ is applied to a collection of wheel, axle, body and so on,

  so the designation ‘self’ (or ‘flower’) is applied to aggregates that lack any core.”

• Jamgön Mipham, Auto-commentary to Madhyamakāvatāra VI (on the two types of illusion):

  “All illusory objects—rabbit horns, black lines, water-moons—are equal in lacking inherent nature. Yet an ocular patient sees black lines, and these appearances condition a matching consciousness; they are functional. A rabbit horn never appears, hence is non-functional. Likewise, virtue and non-virtue are equally unreal, yet one yields happiness and the other suffering. An action unreaped will ripen once; having ripened, it ceases—just as black lines vanish when the disease is cured.” (Adapted for clarity and flow)

• Je Tsongkhapa, Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Verses 11-13: (Quoted in full in Section 9 above)

(Works Cited (Illustrative and to be expanded based on specific translations used))

• Nāgārjuna. Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way). (e.g., trans. Jay L. Garfield).
• Nāgārjuna. Vigrahavyāvartanī (Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness).
• Nāgārjuna. Lokatitastava (Verse Transcending the World).
• Nāgārjuna. Acintyastava (Praise to the Inconceivable).
• Nāgārjuna. Commentary on Bodhichitta (Bodhicittavivaraṇa).
• Candrakīrti. Madhyamakāvatāra (Entering the Middle Way). (e.g., Padmakara Translation Group).
• Jamgön Mipham. Commentary on the Madhyamakāvatāra. (e.g., trans. Padmakara Translation Group, Introduction to the Middle Way).
• Je Tsongkhapa. Three Principal Aspects of the Path.
• Je Tsongkhapa. In Praise of Dependent Origination.
• Longchen Rabjam (Longchenpa). Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind (Tib. Sems nyid ngal gso). (e.g., trans. Padmakara Translation Group, The Trilogy of Rest, Vol. 1).
• Khamtrul Rinpoche. The Royal Seal of Mahamudra, Volume 2.
• Garfield, Jay L. (1994). “Dependent Arising and the Emptiness of Emptiness: Why Did Nāgārjuna Start with Causation?” Philosophy East & West, 44(2), 219-250.
• Parker, Jason. (2019). [Relevant online discussion forum or personal communication, if applicable, otherwise specify source if published].
• Smith, Ācārya Malcolm. [Relevant teaching, text, or communication context].
• Tan, John. [Relevant teaching, text, or communication context].
• (Include other specific scholarly sources or translations referenced for specific interpretations).