The witnessing mind is the gauge. If you need an external tool, you can write down all the reactive thoughts and emotions in a notebook set for this purpose, for an hour each morning and night. Reading the content in it later on can help create the conviction that most of your thoughts and emotions are of a superficial nonsensical sort , and generates unnecessary mental suffering.
Sounds cool. Sounds like one would need a lot of wellpower to do it, though. When I'm upset I'm upset. It's hard not to be when someone does something to upset me or something upsetting happens.
Likes and dislikes are just conditionings. What you like maybe disliked by someone else or vice versa. It has no intrinsic value in itself. If you cling onto your conditionings, you will find this or that irritating and unpleasant to the very end of your life, and hence endure psychological pain or suffering to the very end of your life. That would be so uncool and gross. And this is what most gross people's biographies or life stories are all about.
If someone tries to stab you, you calmly take action according to the moment for self-defence, like calling the police or running away. If you get stabbed, you can apply first aid and get to a hospital. The physical injuries can heal in a couple of days. However if you dwell on the past incident incessantly on an emotional basis instead of being in present moment awareness, it can create psychological trauma and aversions which can take years to heal. Some never get out of it. This is what happened to Monica Seles when she was stabbed while being the world no. 1 in tennis. Her physical injuries were superficial , but her psychological trauma prevented her from being her former self. So you can see that it is the psychology that is the problem. And the psychology is just one's own creation
Someone being calm during a stabbing would be one hell of a scene, lol. But, I like your thinking. No one will ever be able to break you, Ajay0.
It is actually a calm mind that can act correctly in the midst of danger. An emotional mind usually errs and exacerbates the situation. Eastern martial arts focuses on this aspect so that one is calm and centred even in the midst of intense action. If you have self-knowledge, no one can break you, Aoabaizing. As Socrates stated, 'To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.' :guitarist:
Well, that was one hell of a post I made up there. I don't know what happened, how my post got into your post.