Ignorance is simply not knowing the facts, having the facts wrong, or having incomplete knowledge. All of these forms of ignorance lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation, overestimation and underestimation.

Suppose that you are searching for your friend and you see him in a distant field. When you approach, you discover that you have mistaken a scarecrow for your friend. You are bound to be disappointed. It is not as if either the mischievous scarecrow or your friend tried sneakily to mislead you, it is your own ignorance that betrayed you.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist

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Further quotes from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist:

• Emptiness
• Corrosion begins as soon as creation begins
• The real enemy
• Products and parts
• Acts of Generosity
• Today is the death of yesterday
• Clinging to our hopes and fears
• Primordial purity
• Where will they scatter my ashes
• A practicing Buddhist
• A simple, scientific fact
• Being a Buddhist
• Our true nature is like a wineglass
• What is in the mind of a Buddhist
• Buying into emotions
• Pride and pity
• Living fully
• Shielding ourselves and others from the truth
• Not paranoid but prepared