bi you shi yan.
–Mengzi, “Always have a task”
Wang understood Mengzi’s teaching of bi you shi yan as “always have a task.” One must maintain a constant vigil over one’s thoughts and ideas and not seek for moral guidance outside of one’s own actual experiences. Pure knowing teaches the lessons that one needs to learn, each and every moment of one’s life. The task is to pay attention to this unerring inner guide.
–Philip J. Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: The Thought of Mengzi and Wang Yangming, 108
