The challenge of the path is that our own confusion makes sense to us. Our mind-trips are very convincing to us, even if they are neurotic and cause dissatisfaction and suffering. Our conditioned scripts are very compelling to us. We are addicted to them, even if they hurt others or make us miserable. The basic misperceptions that cause us to depart from our Buddha-mind are even barely noticed by us at times. We take them for granted as “how things are,” and “who I am.” Much of our confusion is actually mistaken to be wisdom – that’s what makes confusion so confusing. For example, there are many times we have been mean or mad because it made sense to us at the time, only to realize later that we were confused, that our perspective was skewed. The challenge of the path is to awaken awareness so that we can see things as they really are, so that we can see confusion for what it really is (confusion!) and so that we can see wisdom for what it really is.
– Excepted from public teachings by Pema Khandro