Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka thought can be understood as a profound unfolding of the Buddha’s teaching on dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda). Dependent origination, in its basic formulation, states that phenomena arise only in dependence upon causes, conditions, and conceptual designation; nothing stands alone or exists from its own side. Nāgārjuna takes this insight as the foundation of his entire philosophical project, treating it not as a narrow doctrine about a specific chain of causation, but as a universal principle that applies to all phenomena. On this basis, he argues that whatever arises dependently is empty of inherent existence (svabhāva). Emptiness (śūnyatā), then, is not a separate reality behind things, but the very way dependently arisen things are.

From this perspective, emptiness is simply the absence of any independent, self-established nature in things, precisely because they arise only through dependence. Nāgārjuna thus identifies dependent origination and emptiness as two aspects of a single insight: to see that things are dependently arisen is to see that they are empty, and to see their emptiness is to understand their dependent, relational character. This understanding allows phenomena to retain their causal efficacy and practical significance, while denying them any fixed, ultimate core. In this way, Madhyamaka avoids the extremes of eternalism, which would reify things as truly and permanently existent, and nihilism, which would deny the reality of causal functioning and ethical responsibility.

Nāgārjuna’s use of dependent origination also illuminates the relation between conventional and ultimate truth. On the conventional level, dependently originated phenomena function in ordinary experience, in moral life, and in the path of practice. On the ultimate level, those very same phenomena, when analyzed, are found to be empty of inherent existence. Rather than describing two different worlds, these two truths articulate two ways of regarding the same dependently arisen reality. Dependent origination thus serves both as the key to understanding emptiness and as the safeguard that keeps the realization of emptiness aligned with the lived reality of causality, practice, and liberation.