The Death of Chaos When Given Seven Openings
One of the Zhuangzi's starkest parables shows two well-meaning rulers killing a third by giving him ordinary senses, one hole at a time.
The emperor of the South Sea and the emperor of the North Sea repeatedly meet on the territory of Hundun, "Chaos," emperor of the Center, who always treats them generously. Wanting to repay his kindness, they observe that everyone else has seven openings — for seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing — and Hundun alone has none, so they decide to bore him one hole per day as a gift. On the seventh day, Hundun died — the chapter's entire final line, delivered with no elaboration or moral attached. The fable closes the seven "inner chapters" traditionally considered most reliably authored by Zhuangzi himself, and is widely read as a warning about imposing conventional form and utility, even out of genuine goodwill, onto something whose nature is to remain whole and undifferentiated.
On the seventh day, Chaos died.
Chapters 1 through 7 are traditionally regarded as the 'inner chapters,' the portion of the text scholars consider most likely to derive from Zhuangzi himself, versus the 'outer' and 'miscellaneous' chapters compiled later.
Zhuangzi