Grace and Grit

Rating:
Summary: the best book I have ever read
Review: Although I am a voracious reader, usually at least one book a day, I was so overwhelmed by this book that I did not read another for over two months. It works on every level, as a love story, as a tutorial in philosophy and religion, as a guide through the maze of spiritual offerings in today's world and as a primer for how to be helpful to people with terminal illnesses. It is a great introduction to Ken Wilber's works, and gives the reader a look at his heart as well as his mind. Treya's life and death are my inspiration for the way I want to live, and when the time comes, the way I want to die. Reading this book was the turning point of my life, and I am grateful to Ken Wilber for having the courage to bear his and Treya's souls for his readers' benefit

Rating:
Summary: Practicing the wound of love . . .
Review: Here is a different side of Ken Wilber. More personal, more vulnerable, more approachable by more people. It's easiest toimagine Ken Wilber as a scholar/monk, locked in his study grinding out title after title. (See _Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: the Spirit of Evolution_ for a recent imposing example). In _Grace and Grit_ we come as well to know an all-too-human Wilber, a tragic lover with a heart stung by nettles of distraction and despair. Putting his writing aside for a period of years, Ken became a full-time support person for his wife Treya during her protracted struggle with cancer. Until the very end, the Wilbers hoped and labored for a cure. In the end, they chose to make Treya's death a lesson in living for all of us. This is a sad and joyous book. Saddest of all: what might Treya Killam Wilber have shared with us had she lived longer? (Longer, not fuller. Her life was full - there can be no doubt.) Most joyous: in this work the Wilbers have shared both a vision and practice of hope beyond the boundaries of biological existence. Recommended reading for all who wonder how life can end, when love cannot.

Rating:
Summary: Our Fortune and Our Fate
Review: I recommend this book to all mortals as a wonderfully sad introduction to Buddhism. I am the support person for my similarly situated wife, so I could not force myself to stop reading this book. While comparing our ordeals, I felt that this is not only Ken and Treya's story; it is everyone's story. The unique love, suffering and courage described by Wilber is in us all, and that is our fortune as well as our fate.

Rating:
Summary: lover of grace
Review: I was puzzled and disappointed at the conclusions Ken Wilber came to about what happens to consciousness after physical death, but that is a very small part of this generous, sensitive, deeply personal book (with much practical value, especially to the cancer patient) most of it worthy of 5 stars, some of it worth more.

Rating:
Summary: Blew the roof off my 5-star ceiling
Review: I'll admit it. I've written a lot of five star reviews. I tend to comment when I have praise to offer. This book just took me to a whole new level of appreciation for a writer. It's like the difference between, "Yes, I think you are a lovely person" and "There isn't one thing about you which I don't find absolutely loveable."

I urge you to buy this book, and expand your own vision of what is possible: in a loving relationship, as one approaches the end of this physical existence, and within the human heart and soul.

This book woke me up. It reminded me about Love. (Saying that, the words seem so inadequate) The truth is, I can't come close to conveying the Love which comes through in this book. It�s personal love directed toward a wife, a husband, a family. It's universal Love which calls to you to find your way home. It beckons "Promise you will find me again."

I just finished reading the last chapter, and I cried and cried. I remembered what it was like when my mom died. Dannion Brinkley said that when someone dies, the doors to Heaven open up, and energy flows in both directions. I'll second that. My mothers death was one of the most sacred experiences of my life.

Reading this, I also remembered Love. A friend of mine used to tease his wife. She would say "Honey, do you love me?" And he would respond, "Only when I stop and think about it." Love is like that isn't it? If we don't stop and become present to Love, then Love isn't present in our awareness, and that which isn't present in our awareness isn't real to us in the present moment. At best, it is a myth about a "Once upon a time/somewhere someday" experience.

This book, and especially the last chapter increased my awareness of Love so dramatically, I felt like I just woke up. And then it repeated the experience. I just kept waking up to more and more love. I am overflowing with humble gratitude for the gift that reading this book is to me.

Thank you Ken. Thank you Treya. Thanks for reminding me of what I live for.

I have a request of you the reader. If you do nothing else, go to a bookstore and read the last chapter. I promise that if you are anything like me, it will flat out blow you away. Your reading that chapter will further the conversation of freedom. It will further the conversation of Love as a present moment reality. And it will further the conversation of death being beautiful in its own way, at its own time.

You will not regret the time invested. I promise.

--Frank Boyd

Rating:
Summary: Made me cry and taught me something
Review: It amazed me how throughout this book you can see Treya Wilber becoming a greater and greater person the sicker she became physically. It is the first book I read of Wilber's. I like the therorizing but realized at the end that love is greater than theorizing. (Far greater than mine.) That is what this book said to me. Also a great introduction to Buddhism and esoteric philsophy. I'm trying to get everyone I know to read it.

Rating:
Summary: A story of love and loss
Review: The incredible story of Ken and Treya Wilber. A few days after their wedding Treya was diagnosed with breast cancer. This is the honest story of their spiritual journey in their short 5 years together. It was a very moving book for me and especially made me see how much I take for granted.

Rating:
Summary: TREYA LIVED A COMPLETE LIFE AND DIED A BEAUTIFUL DEATH
Review: 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:
Summary: lover of grace
Review: This is simply THE most wonderful book I have ever read , Ken is amazing and so real, And she just IS.

Rating:
Summary: Hard Won Wisdom
Review: To be perfectly honest, some of the other Ken Wilbur books that I have read have tended to have been excessively cerebral and potentially offputting to the general reader - they are like academic textbooks which assume prior knowledge of psychology, philosophy and the sciences, which one has to labor through in order to "get it" in the end. There is also a certain smugness in the elegant systems that he builds that always seemed so far removed from the messiness of daily life, and I have always believed that spirituality, has to be lived to be understood.

This book is exact opposite of the above, it is an inspiration about how to live life - in all its pain and imperfections and finally the redemptive power of love. I can only say that I one of the few times I have felt truly in awe of a person was throughout the reading of this book.

It touches on all the important questions life, death, love, destiny, purpose, spirituality, the relationship between the soul and the body - and most of all it has the potential to heal and transform.

My friend Hiromi - to whom I lent this book when her mother was dying of cancer told me she could only read a few pages at a time without putting it down because the shock of recognition and empathy was too great, yet she could not help but read it from cover to cover. Instead of abstract platitudes she received wisdom that was won at a high price. She belies that it helped her come to terms and lent her support through the whole experience and is helping her to heal. And perhaps there is really not much more I can add to an endorsement like that.