From a poem by Wang Shouren (Mr. Yangming), a famous thinker and writer in Ming Dynasty, "Four Conscience Shows Life".
Four Conscience Poems Expressing Life (3)
Everyone has his own fixed needle, and the root of everything is always in his heart.
But I looked down with a smile and found it outside the branches and leaves.
Interpretation: This poem tells us that conscience is hidden in our hearts, and it shows us the direction like a needle. The sentence "the root of everything is always in the heart" means that time is complicated, and even the changes and relationships between everything are in people's hearts. Wang Yangming laughed at himself. He didn't understand this truth before, but he "looked out of the branches and leaves" and asked outside his heart. The result can only be to seek fish from the edge of the tree.
Extended data:
Wang Shouren, Han nationality, was born in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province (now Yuyao, Ningbo). Scholars call him Mr. Yangming, also known as Wang Yangming, because he once built a room in Yangming Cave in Huiji Mountain. A famous thinker, writer, philosopher and strategist in Ming Dynasty, he was proficient in Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and was a master of Wang Lu's mind.
"Four Conscience Shows Life" (the third one) embodies his theory of "Mind Learning". Wang Shouren put forward the propositions of "nothing outside the heart" and "unreasonable outside the heart", and advocated "to conscience" and "the unity of knowing and doing" in epistemology. "Conscience" refers to honing one's inner conscience and extending it to things. This process is called "integration of knowledge and action". "people ... know what they don't care about, and their conscience is also."
References:
Baidu Encyclopedia-Four Poems to Show Students Conscience