When we first printed our English book, what was called the "White Book," in 1990, we were advised by one of our students who did editing on the book to be very careful with the Thai printers in Bangkok, where we were getting it printed. He said that mistakes can come in the oddest ways. He used to edit English in Korea. Now when we were checking over the drafts for the book, we saw that they misspelled idealism each time. We almost felt like leaving it, because what they did, was that they divided idealism into "I" and "dealism". They didn't think it was the right word, they thought it was two different words, they made "I" and "dealism". We thought it was very cute, because when people have idealism, they make a big deal about the "I, me, mine".
There is not much equanimity when a person is caught up with a lot of idealism. The ideal is something that is often out of our reach and of course it's going to throw us off balance, that is, we just can't have much equanimity. We can have equanimity if we are realistic. If we actually see what is real. Now, that doesn't negate the ideal as I was mentioning before, the ideal of purifying, the ideal of the Buddha and trying to become a better human being. It doesn't negate that. So be clear that you know the word idealism as to how we use it, it can be a positive force, or a negative force. But for most people, of course, it's negative, because it takes them away from the reality. Now, when we see that we are off balance, ah, that's the time to remind ourselves, "Hey, I haven't got any equanimity!" Now, you may find that you are off balance during the day. You don't know what you are thinking about, but you know you are off balance. So you reflect to yourself, "Hey, wait a minute, I haven't got any equanimity, what am I caught up in, what are my thoughts?" You might then see your thoughts went into idealism. So, by becoming more mindful of when you are balanced or not, this can actually help you to understand whether you are caught up in idealism or not.