缘起流转是轮回，缘起还灭是解脱。

The key to breaking off the Twelve Nidanas

三、缘起还灭的锁钥

Ignorance gives rise to volitional actions, volitional actions to consciousness and ultimately birth to old age and death. Each preceding cause gives rise to the subsequent effect which in turn gives rise to the next cause and so on. This is dependent origination. The same also applies in reverse. That is, when ignorance stops, volitional actions stop as well, then consciousness, name and form....until birth stops, finally aging and death stop. Dependent origination thus ceases. The continuation of dependent origination is samsara, its ceasing liberation from samsara.

有无明就有行，有行就有识，乃至有生就有老死。前前为因，有了前前的因，就会产生后后的果，这就叫做缘起的流转。若无明停止，则行自然停止，行停止则识停止，识停止则名色停止，乃至生停止则老死停止，这就叫做缘起的还灭。缘起流转是轮回，缘起还灭是解脱。

What we are experiencing now is the continuation of dependent origination, the ceasing of which is what we need to accomplish. The key for continuing or ceasing dependent origination is ignorance, the first of the Twelve Nidanas. As long as ignorance remains, the subsequent phenomena will not stop. For instance, when the locomotive is running, the rest of the carriage will move along. If it stops or if there is no engine, the rest of the train will not move either. Similarly, if the first link of the chain does not stop, the rest will not stop; once ignorance stops, the rest cannot continue and hence liberation from samsara. All in all, the primary solution still rests with the eradication of ignorance.

现在我们正在经历的是缘起的流转，而我们需要做的是缘起的还灭。缘起还灭则解脱，缘起流转则轮回。还灭和流转的最关键问题在哪里呢？就是在第一支无明支上。只要我们有无明，其他的就都不可能停止。打个比方：若有火车头，后面的车厢就会跟着走；若火车头停下来，或是根本没有车头，后面的车厢就不可能走。同样的，若十二缘起中的第一个无明支不停下来，后面的就不会停止；无明支若是停下来了，后面的也就无法继续，所以就会解脱。追根究底，还是要推翻无明，断除无明。

As an example, in a nightmare we would experience pain and fear as real as we do in daytime. Why is that? When we sleep, we dream. However, it is not the dream that is affecting us and causing us pain but our clinging to the dream being solid and real. If we do not take it for real, it cannot cause fear and pain even though scenes of the dream do appear.

譬如，做噩梦的时候，我们会感到和白天一样的恐怖和痛苦，那是为什么呢？有了睡眠就产生梦境，但是，给我们带来影响和痛苦的并非梦境，而是我们的执著，是因为我们把梦境当成实有而导致的。如果做梦时不把梦境当真，那么虽然有梦境的现象，却不可能导致这些恐惧和痛苦。