There are three wrong views concerning causality:

1. Things have no cause, or a random cause. This is the view most sported by atheist scientists, who don't see any true teleological fact in science, just effective causes such as The Big Bang and similar theories. If we combine this view with modern science we have the idea that consciousness arose through a limited number of random combinations of matter.

2. Things have a sole cause, mostly a ultimate entity or substance, such as God or prakriti. But we should not confuse this with a necessarily religious or faith-based idea. This view can also be seen in the ideas of those scientists or philosophers who propose the existence of an underlying structure to reality, such as one that can be formulated or understood — or even one that exists but cannot be understood, be it through human difficulties or through insurpassable obstacles inherent to this knowledge.

3. Things are caused by past events (in particular actions) alone. This is a deterministic view of karma.

When I debate with certain buddhists I can see clearly that they don't want to fall in the two first categories. But the third one is slightly harder to avoid. This is due to subtle difficulties found in the understandings of what would be other causes beyond karma that won't imply 1 or 2.

If we stablish that there is something operating beyond interdependence we fall easily in either one. But we should not fall into a naive view of interdependence such as the interdependence of parts, as the one found in the vaibhasika¹ understanding. This must be a view of interdependence closer to the cittamatra.

The vaibhasika view of interdepence ascribes existence to discret space. Something is empty, acording to this view, if it is composite — because it depends on its parts. Such is the understanding that makes me think that my feet, detached from me, isn't me. This in itself is not wrong, but when we are faced with causes beyond karma, we easily can search for the interference of "outside parts" — which would mean an independent objectivity, be it acausal, as in the atheist scientific view, be it structured, such in the theistic approach.

In this way we need a stronger interdepence, that doesn't ascribe true existence to discrete entities whatsoever. This is, at first, the view of cittamatra, where all is projection of mind, and after that, in the madhyamika view, things cause each other — mind and object being coemergent.

In the view that things cause each other, karma isn't all that happen because there's inherent freedom in the space where coemergence arises. That is, non-causality is always possible. In other words, karma doesn't determine, it only shapes, and causality is itself a product of delusion.

It is unclear if the Sarvastivadas would not arise to this understanding, but it is clear that most interpretations of their teachings gave rise to the vaibhasika understanding. This questions are at the core of the birth of mahayana.