RYOKAI PATHS SERIES
Turning Troubles
into Blessings
with An-shu Stephen K. Hayes
You can learn all kinds of things from trouble.
You can learn fear and avoidance. You can learn not to trust yourself. You can learn contempt for your fellow humans, for your situation, and for life itself.
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Trouble can create more trouble.
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Or, from the exact same situation, you can learn courage. You can cultivate self-knowledge. You can gain insight and wisdom worth sharing with your fellow humans. You can experience a kind of unbreakable, forged-in-fire love for life.
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You can turn trouble into triumph.
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Sounds nice. But how do we do that? Maybe you've already tried positive thinking, deep breathing, and primal screaming.
In my experience, there's no quick-tip or technique that offers the power you're seeking.
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The power lies along a spiral path, a journey into the Truth at the center of your experience.
Thankfully, we aren't the first ones to seek this path. In fact, our ancestors left a map: the Kongokai Mandala. In this training, An-shu will share his 9-step process for turning troubles into blessings using the Kongokai as your guide.
"May all beings find wisdom
and transmute confused ideas
to become insight into the
vastness of truth."
An-Shu Stephen K. Hayes
An ancient method of navigation for those times when we're lost in life's woods.
Esoteric teachings make use of visual, verbal, and visceral processes as means of transmitting knowledge.
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Words alone don't always give us the complete picture.
Mandala are visual schematics or blueprints designed to illustrate how our minds operate.
"We are given visual renderings of reality 'as it really is,' in the form of statues, paintings, and symbolic items that hint at a potential experience in the configuration of their form. Graphic collections of these figures and symbols are referred to as mandala."
Stephen K. Hayes, Action Meditation
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The Kongokai mandala represents the workings of cosmic truth and the way these timeless principles unfold themselves.
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What if you could see the truth at the center of your trouble?
"Your first objective is to study to the point of understanding that we humans have a variety of viewpoints from which we can choose to perceive life at any moment."
Stephen K. Hayes, Action Meditation
Community as a key to lasting growth
Sangha is the Sanskrit word for community or assembly. It is one of the keys to success on the path of personal development.
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Quite often people attend classes or seminars from great teachers, but the learning support ends with the closing speech. After a few days, the energy of the event fades and the positive momentum of meaningful change fizzles out. We fall back into our old habits.
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This teaching series is designed to keep the momentum going!
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An-shu presents a lesson, and we follow up a week later with a discussion led by senior community leader and ordained shugenja, Jim McFarland.
Bring your burning questions to Mr. McFarland and he will assist you in integrating the teachings into your daily life.
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Plus you'll gain access to our discussion group on Facebook, wherein members of the community seek answers, share wisdom, and contribute to the advancement of others on the path.
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Each of us brings a lifetime of experience and a unique perspective to the group. Your insights may illuminate something from the lesson that someone else missed.
And theirs may do the same for you.
RYOKAI PATHS SERIES
Turning Troubles into Blessings
Four-part live online (Zoom) training. Forever-access to recordings.
+ 2 trainings with Stephen K. Hayes
+ 2 discussions with Jim McFarland
+ access to the Ryokai Facebook Group
Live sessions occur Saturdays 3-4pm EST
March 27, April 3, April 24, May 1
Reserve your seat for $87 and get immediate access to our Facebook community.
Stephen K. Hayes
Primary Instructor
An-shu Stephen K. Hayes is everyone's image of the iconic master warrior sage.
Black Belt Magazine calls him "A legend; one of the ten most influential martial arts masters alive in the world today" for good reason. He is peerless in his ability to share real and honest ninja combat secrets enriched by unparalleled insights from the Himalayan meditative mind sciences.
His gift is his ability to deliver a complete and all-inclusive approach to personal security and personal power. His genius is his ability to present complex esoteric concepts in a practical, useful, and understandable way.
Jim McFarland
Discussion Leader
Jim McFarland is a student of An-Shu Stephen K. Hayes and holds the rank of yondan (4th degree black belt) in ninjutsu.
Mr. McFarland is a Rei-Bu (ordained practitioner) of Japanese Shugendo mountain transformation practice and holds the Buddhist name Eisho. He also studies and practices Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.
Mr. McFarland is a Masters level clinical counselor with 30 years of experience and specializes in helping people suffering with anxiety.
He is the author of a new series of self-help courses titled “Attack Your Anxiety and Rewire Your Anxious Brain” released in the U.S. to help a broader audience find relief from anxiety.
Bryan Griffin
Community Organizer
Bryan Toutoshi Griffin began training in To-Shin Do with An-shu Stephen and Rumiko Hayes at the Hombu dojo in 1998 and currently holds the rank of rokudan (6th degree black belt).
Mr Griffin is a Deshi-Gashira (Senior Disciple) of Shugendo.
He is a veteran of the US Marine Corps and served as a scout sniper in combat deployements to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
He has a degree in business administration and runs the Raleigh Quest Center, where he shares the valuable self-defense and self-development training of To-Shin Do with all who seek to unleash their potential!
Through this series I have experienced a sense of empowerment and confidence previously unknown to me.
I have become more conscious of the core beliefs that have been inhibiting me and am developing more beneficial perspectives.
As my mindset has shifted I have developed more agency, making choices that have created significant breakthroughs in personal challenges that I have been unable to make through years of weekly therapy and lots of personal development work alone.
KONGOKAI SERIES PARTICIPANT
Kim / Research Psychologist, Program Manager
Mr. McFarland, Mr. Hayes and the group invite us to question and think for ourselves and to see the humor in how human it is to practice.
The methods have helped me see habits that have been in my blind spots. They point to the inner obstacles that inhibit growth and offer concrete ways to develop new patterns. I especially liked the question from Mr. Hayes, “What is a quality you describe to yourself as a strength that actually gets in your way?”
The ideas they have taught about are practical and can be put into action in big and small areas of life right away.
KONGOKAI SERIES PARTICIPANT
Elizabeth / Senior Director, Healthcare Data Measurements
RYOKAI PATHS SERIES
Turning Troubles into Blessings
Four-part live online (Zoom) training. Forever-access to recordings.
+ 2 trainings with Stephen K. Hayes
+ 2 discussions with Jim McFarland
+ access to the Ryokai Facebook Group
Live sessions Saturdays 3-4pm EST
March 27, April 3, April 24, May 1
Reserve your seat for $87 and get immediate access to our Facebook community.
