Self and suffering in buddhism and phenomenology
existential pain, compassion and the problems of institutional healthcare
pp. 181-195
in: George, P. G. Jung (eds), Cultural ontology of the self in pain, Berlin, Springer, 2016Abstract
By bringing together the Buddhist notion that suffering is intrinsic to all forms of our self-experience with Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological interpretation of selfhood in terms of the "habit-body," I show that vulnerability and meaningfulness go hand-in-hand. I then use this developed understanding of the nature of selfhood and suffering as the basis for a critique of various foundational aspects of contemporary, institutionalized healthcare. In particular, I consider ways in which oppressive social and political practices are instituted when the existential dimensions of pain are ignored and a medical model, based on the vision of pain as an alien threat to be eliminated, is adopted instead.
