ABSTRACT
During illness, people who have always been bodies have distinctive problems continuing to be bodies, particularly continuing to be the same sorts of bodies they have been. The body's problems during illness are not new; being a body always involves certain problems. Illness requires new and more self-conscious solutions to these general problems. The infantile body is contingent: burping, spitting, and defecating according to its own internal needs and rhythms. Society expects nothing more, and infants are afforded some period to acquire control. The recognition of mortality complicates this association. Legend has it that Gautama who later became the Buddha left his palace and became an ascetic after seeing bodies that exemplified suffering, decay, and death. The Buddha’s later enlightenment included his renunciation of asceticism and ability to move back into his body. His body association was no longer either tacit or hedonistic but became a moral choice to accept his lot as a body prone to suffering.
