Grace and Grit - Spiritiuality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber by Ken Wilber.pdf

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Grace and Grit
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GRACE AND GRIT
Spirituality and Healing
in the Life and Death of
Treya Killam Wilber
Ken Wilber
SECOND EDITION
SHAMBHALA
Boston 2000
 
 
Next
To Sue and Radcliffe Killam,
on the occasion of Rad's eightieth birthday;
To Vicky, Linda, Roger, Frances, Sam, Seymour, Warren, and
Kati, for being there through thick and thin;
To David and Mary Lamar, for carrying on;
To Tracy and Michael, for putting up with me;
To Zahirudeen and Brad, for holding down the home fort;
To the women and men of the Cancer Support Community,
Treya and Vicky's child;
To Ken and Lucy, for understanding our absence;
To Edith Zundel, our mother away from home;
And in memory of Rolf Zundel and Bob Doty,
two of the most decent men we had ever known,
casualties in this gruesome war
Introduction to the Second Edition
AS I WRITE THIS, it has been ten years since Treya's death. I am immeasurably more, and immeasurably less,
because of her presence. Immeasurably more, for having known her; immeasurably less, for having lost her. But
then, perhaps every event in life is like that: filling you up and emptying you out, all at the same time. It is just that,
it is oh-so-rare that such a one as Treya is with us, and thus the joy, and the pain, are all so intensely amplified.
There are as many Treyas as there are those who knew her. What follows is my Treya. I am not saying it is the
only Treya, or even the best. But I do believe it is a full account, fair and balanced. In particular, it makes liberal
use of her own journals, which she kept off and on for most of her adult life, and which she kept almost daily
during the years we were together.
I had always intended to destroy these journals after Treya died, and without reading them myself, because they
were so intensely personal for her. She never showed them to anybody, not even me. Not because she was reclusive
or private about her "real feelings" and thus had to "hide" them in her journals. On the contrary, one of the most
extraordinary things about Treya—in fact, I might say the single most astonishing thing about her—is that she had
almost no split between her public and her private selves. She harbored no "secret" thoughts that she was afraid or
ashamed to share with the world. If you asked, she would tell you exactly what she thought—about you or anybody
else—but in such a nondefensive, direct, straightforward way that people rarely got upset. 1 his was the basis of her
enormous integrity: people trusted her right from the start, because they seemed to know that she would never lie to
them, and as far as I can tell, she never did. No, I had intended to destroy the journals simply because when she
wrote in them, it was a special time for her to be alone with herself, and felt that nobody, including me, should
violate that space. But right before her death, she pointed to her journals and said, "You'll need those." She had
asked me to write about our ordeal, and she knew that I would need her journals in order to convey her own
thoughts.
In writing Grace and Grit , I read through all of the journals (around ten large notebooks, and many computer files),
and was able to find excerpts on virtually every topic covered in the following pages, thus letting Treya speak for
herself, in her own words, in her own way. As I read those journals, it was exactly as I had suspected: there were
no secrets, no items that she had not generally shared with me or with her family and friends. Treya simply had no
split between her public and private selves. I think that was exactly part of her enormous integrity, and I think that
was directly related to what can only be called her fearlessness. There was a strength in Treya that was absolutely
 
fearless, and I do not say that lightly. Treya had little fear because she had little to hide, from you or me or God or
anybody. She was transparent to reality, to the Divine, to the world, and thus had nothing to fear from it. I saw her
in much pain; I saw her in much agony; I saw her in much anger. I never saw her in fear.
It's not hard to understand why people felt alive in her presence, vivified, awakened. Even when we were in various
hospitals, with Treya undergoing one gruesome indignity or another, people (nurses, visitors, other patients, their
visitors) used to hang out in her room, just to be around the presence, the life, the energy, that she seemed to
radiate. In a hospital in Bonn, Germany, I remember waiting in line to get into her room.
She could be obstinate; strong people often are. But it came out of that core of vivid presence and wakefulness, and
it was bracing. People often came away from Treya more alive, more open, more direct. Her presence changed you,
sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but it changed you. It drew you into being present to the Present, it reminded
you to wake up.
One other thing: Treya was remarkably beautiful, and yet (as you will see in the following pages), she had almost
no vanity, which was amazing. As much as anybody I have ever known, including some very enlightened teachers,
she was unselfconsciously herself, just so. She was simply and directly present, all of her. The fact that she had
little self-consciousness made her even more right here . Around Treya, the world became immediate and focused,
clear and inviting, bright and honest, open and alive.
Grace and Grit is her story; and our story. Many people asked me, since I was so careful to include Treya's own
writing and her own voice in the following pages, why I didn't list her as coauthor of the book. I thought about
doing so from the beginning, but conversations with editor and publisher made it increasingly clear that to do so
was misleading (as one editor put it, "A coauthor is someone who actively writes a book with another person. This
is different from taking someone else's writings and weaving them into a book"). So I hope that those readers who
felt that I was not acknowledging Treya's contribution will realize that such was certainly not my intent, and that
Treya's real voice has been included on almost every page, by letting her speak for herself.
At one point in Treya's journals she wrote, "Had lunch with Emily Hilburn Sell, the editor at Shambhala. I like her
a lot, trust her judgment. I told her about the book I was working on—cancer, psychotherapy, spirituality—and
asked her if she would edit for me. I'd love to, she said, which makes me even more determined to see this project
through!" Treya did not have time to complete her book—which is why she asked me to write this one—but I am
glad to report that Emily was the editor of Grace and Grit , and did a wonderful job.
A few minor points. Most people read this book, not for technical information about my work, but for Treya's story.
As I indicate in the Note to the Reader, chapter 11 is particularly technical, and it definitely can be skipped without
missing a thing! (Actually, if you are skipping that chapter, just read the few paragraphs in between the interview
material, since it has some important story elements; but otherwise, skip away. Readers interested in a more up-to-
date version of my own work might wish to consult Integral Psychology .)
In this present book, all of Treya's journal entries are marked by a vertical solid line down the left-hand margin.
These are different from, say, some of her letters, which have no solid lines. Her letters, even if they were mostly
private, were still open to other people (namely, those to whom she sent them). But every entry marked by a solid
vertical line is from her journals, and thus an entry previously not available.
The reception to Grace and Grit was overwhelming, and it wasn't me the readers were responding to. To date, I
have received close to a thousand letters from people all over the world—an unprecedented percentage write to tell
me what Treya's story has meant to them, and how it has changed their lives. Some have sent pictures of their baby
daughters named "Treya," and I can tell you, as a purely objective bystander, that they are the most beautiful little
girls in the world. Some of the people who write have cancer, and they were initially afraid to read the book; but
once they did, they tended to lose their fear, sometimes almost completely - a gift from Treya to them, I honestly
believe.
Dear Ken,
Last August I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had segmental surgery, lymph node dissection and a
three-week treatment. I am in constant relationship with cancer on all levels. Several weeks ago a friend
told me of your book and I knew I had to read it. It was a scary thought because, after all, I knew the
ending.
"But," I thought, "she had some other kind of more serious cancer." How's that for denial? The fact is, I
have the same kind of terrible cancer Treya had. The truth is this book has been at moments terrifying ,
but totally freeing . . . .
Freeing, because Treya describes, almost step by step, the way in which she moved through the pain and agony of
cancer and into a spiritual freedom and liberation that outshines death and its inherent terror. As one of my favorite
letters said (and this is the entire letter):
 

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