Yellow, the Colour of the Centre, at the Heart of the Lower Fire

The second line is the most straightforwardly fortunate in the hexagram and it says almost nothing. Legge's translation places the subject in his place in yellow and gives great good fortune, while the commentary attributes that fortune to his having attained the central course. Yellow is the colour of earth and, in the colour scheme the classic works with, the colour of the mean, so the single image is not decoration. It names the quality that produces the result.

Position accounts for the whole of it. This is a yielding stroke in an even seat, correct by the ordinary rule, holding the middle of the lower trigram Li. In the trigram itself the yielding line is the middle one, held between two firm strokes, which is the classical picture of brightness with something to cling to on either side. A soft line at the centre of fire is fire behaving as fire should, attached and contained and therefore steady.

Set against the other lines the restraint is the point. The first moves before it can see, the third laments the sun going down, the fourth burns itself up on arrival. The second neither flares nor flickers, occupies the middle, and is described in one colour word. In a figure about dependent brightness the text treats holding the centre as the whole of what needs saying, and adds nothing to it.