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Title: Grace and Grit : Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber by KEN WILBER ISBN: 1-57062-742-8 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 06 February, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.73 (33 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: TREYA LIVED A COMPLETE LIFE AND DIED A BEAUTIFUL DEATH
Comment: This book is a "supermarket" on love story, comedy,
psychology, spirituality, growth, enlightenment, alternative
medicines, life, death and healing. A real page turner that allows
you waste no time to finish it straight away. I read it during my
vacation two weeks ago. I took it with me during bath and each trip to
the loo. Every person, especially women,with or without cancer must
read this book. This is also a perfect gift for those with cancer
(the only downfall is of course the sensitive death issue so openly
talked about in this book the reality of which so many people in such
a predicament, both the patients and support people, find it difficult
to face and prepare for. This is most unfortunate since this could
perhaps be the only truly significant help and hope for both patients
and support people to make the remaining time left, say if miracle
doesn't come, worth living.)
It is a course on living (also death)
and how to be human and to accept all the human conditions that go
with it, written by both Ken and Treya Wilber. Ken Wilber has
skillfully increased my admiration and faith in the practicality and
superiority, both spiritual and intellectual, of (eastern)mysticism,
especially Buddhism, over mythical religions such as mainstream
Christianity and Islam (since there are also mystic branches in both
religions), although he wouldn't call himself a Buddhist for his deep
affinity for Christian mysticism and Vedanta Hinduism (despite his
rigorous Buddhist practice).As he noted in the book jocularly:
"All religions are the same, especially Buddhism".
His
love and dedication for Treya was so deeply touching. Treya's
remarkable endurance and psychological/spiritual health despite
extreme agony, pain and suffering she went through was unequaled. Her
enormous love of life and calm acceptance of her imminent death was a
true epitome of the "passionate equanimity" she coined (she
still read her favorite phrases from her favorite spiritual books Ken
wrote on cards in bold after she was almost totally blind due to her
malignant brain tumor). The title of this book was taken from the
last entry she put on her journal two days before she died that also
signified this harmonious paradox and her victory of her lifetime
balance seeking between doing and being.
A both are
"gifted" with advanced intelligence (Ken Wilber is a
intellectual, material and spiritual. They were lucky to have each
other because they beautified each other in every way, though under
extreme duress the strength of their love and commitment to each other
wasn't without challenge which once almost tore them apart.
This
book has "quietly" changed me (perhaps also my life, I can't
tell yet). I didn't feel it straight away but later I realised how
this book and Treya's incessant and "joyful" (she was a joy,
in spite of everything)struggle has always been on the back of my mind
ever since. In so many ways I can see my reflection in Treya. She
was single for a long time before she met Ken in her 36 years of age
(and sentenced with breast cancer 10 days after their wedding). She
was attractive and highly intelligent. I am in my early thirties and
unmarried and many think I am attractive and highly intelligent. She
was a writer, so am I. She had a deep interest in meditation,
spirituality, philosophy and mysticism, so do I. She had been
struggling all along searching for her daemon (one's inner deity or
guiding spirit, vocation, "life's work"), so have I. Her life
was a balancing act between yin and yang, the feminine and masculine
aspects of herself, between the intellectual and artistic sides of her
psyche, between taking control and assuming responsibility on one side
(masculine, yang, doing) and letting go, surrender and going with the
flow on the other (feminine, yin,being/accepting). Doing is
"obsessed" with producing something, making something, achieving
something; it is aggressive, competitive, oriented toward the future
and depended on rules and judgement. Being, otoh, is embracing the
present, accepting a person for what he is, not for he can do; it
values relationship, inclusion, acceptance, compassion and care. I am
struggling in that area too. Treya felt she had too much yang, had
always valued doing over being; the reason why she changed her name
from Terry, which she thought to be a man's name, to a more feminine
Treya (from estrella, Spanish word for "star"). I feel myself
too much prone to my masculine side too. She was the oldest in her
family, so am I, hence this relentless sense of responsibility of
being "the oldest son" in both of us.
Now, I can be more
accepting things as they really are. I'm still uptight, passionate
and obsessed about doing, producing, achieving and perfection, but
more relaxed and calm (passionate equanimity) and more fair and
generous to myself. My mind is more controlled and tamed, also due to
Zen meditation I'm beginning to take. I'm slowly deserting the
obsession for meaning (the meaning of life is there is no meaning in
life, life just is). Less ruminating on a perceived bargaining on
that.
The part when she was dying was the most beautiful. It was a
lucid death, commonly practiced by the Tibetans. She was in complete
control (she more or less decided the timing of her own death), very
ecstatic about "going" and completely conscious (she refused
pain killer because she wanted to remain alert) until the very end,
maintaining a meditative posture prescribed by Tibetan Buddhism,
guided by her ever present beloved and loving husband who kept reading
her the instruction even after her clinical death (the accompanying
"Tibetan Book of the Dead", translated by Robert Thurman, the
most profound, sophisticated and complete account on the science of
death and the art of dying, is also recommended). By the time she
opened her eyes for the last time and gazed to everyone present in the
room and exhaled her last breath at the age of 41, much tear has been
profusely shed from my eyes. What even more remarkable was the fact
that she closed her gaping mouth, due to rigor mortis, by HERSELF 1
hour 45 minutes after her death and, then, smiled! (A sign of
advanced level of enlightenment in Tibetan Buddhism)! If death could
be that beautiful, I'm looking forward to my own death.
Rating: 5
Summary: A moving, make-you-think, life-affecting work
Comment: 'Grace and Grit' is the single most moving book I've ever read. If you read through all the other comments, they cover exactly what I felt, but I still had to add my own opinion. This is my first journey into the transpersonal philosophy of Ken Wilber, and I found the spirituality and philosophical aspects of the book not just fascinating, but necessary. The whole work, from Treya's letters, to her journal, to Wilber's additions, fit into one seamless whole that packed a hell of a punch.
It was not just the poignant love story, but the amazing way that Treya lived through that part of her life, and the honest way the Wilber approached it in the book.
It is a work that I will always carry with me, its message too important to ignore. And I will urge every single person I know to read it, if just to be exposed to the impact of it all.
Rating: 5
Summary: lover of grace
Comment: This is simply THE most wonderful book I have ever read , Ken is amazing and so real, And she just IS.
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Title: One Taste by KEN WILBER ISBN: 1570625476 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 08 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: A Brief History of Everything by KEN WILBER ISBN: 1570627401 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 06 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Sex, Ecology, Spirituality : The Spirit of Evolution, Second Edition by KEN WILBER ISBN: 1570627444 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 02 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Integral Psychology : Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy by KEN WILBER ISBN: 1570625549 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 16 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: No Boundary : Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth by Ken Wilber ISBN: 1570627436 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 06 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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