A suffering body can be active despite being passive to sensation.

Evidence

Although the living body is the object of sensations (and in that sense passive), its ability to suffer, to respond perceptually and emotionally to external and internal causes, to use its own pain in unique ways in particular social relationships, makes it active. Many traditions therefore attribute to the living human body the potential to be shaped (the power to shape itself ) for good or ill. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 435

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is the hinge of Asad’s whole argument about pain as agency; worth chasing how he formalizes the passive-active distinction across the chapter.