Hùndùn

Hundun appears in several Daoist texts, most famously in Zhuangzi. In one parable, Hundun is the deity of the center — unlike the deities of the north and south who had seven orifices, Hundun had none. The other deities tried to benefit him by boring the seven holes (for sight, hearing, smell, taste); when they finished the seventh hole, Hundun died. The parable encapsulates Daoist philosophy: imposing differentiation and order on primordial wholeness destroys it. Hundun also refers to the undifferentiated state before creation.

In personified form: a featureless being with no face, no distinguishing characteristics — pure undifferentiated potential. Sometimes described as a yellow sack or shapeless mass. Cannot be described or defined, as definition itself violates its nature.

As primordial chaos, Hundun contains the potential for all things. It cannot be opposed because it has no defined form to oppose. Contact with it dissolves differentiation — identities and distinctions blur and merge. Its 'death' (through the boring of holes) created the differentiated world; its return would end it.