Love and Truth
Principles and practices to Spark Creativity and Explore the Infinite Potential Within.
Love & Truth Principles
The Active Meditation
The Love and Truth active Meditation: Witness the present with a non judgmental mind (Truth), guided by heart intuition (love), while in a state of action (flow).
Keys To Unlock Potential & Live Fully
The Mind / Truth / Frequency: Nurture an open and clear mind by letting go of cherishing opinions (good and bad), judgement, discrimination and beliefs. See thoughts as perspective, not truth. Be the witnessing presence where life is happening.
The Heart / Love / Vibration: Nurture the qualities of an open heart: unconditional love, compassion, gratitude. When the mind is clear, the heart naturally flowers like a magnetic intuitive compass of your true potential. Follow your heart.
The Body / Action / Energy: Align the body, heart and mind to an open, relaxed and alert flow state by practicing the Love & Truth exercises. When the system is harmonized, chi (life force) circulates and the light of awareness shines brighter to guide the way.
Frequency + Vibration + Energy = Resonance
A key function of the Love & Truth practice is the development of awareness with your energy, thoughts, emotions and actions. As you become more conscious (not compulsive) about these four “wheels” of your life, they align to the guidance of your awakened state.
Take ownership of these keys when you are ready to be the captain of your ship. To navigate through life gracefully and live fully!
To know thy self, live who you truly are and follow the heart.
The Exercises (Practice)
Tradition traces the roots of these harmonizing exercises to Bodhidharma, the legendary monk associated with the transmission of Chan Buddhism in China, the tradition that would later develop into Zen Buddhism in Japan, and with the spiritual foundations of the Shaolin tradition. Accounts of his life are woven through history and legend, including traditions that describe his journey from India and his study with the awakened female teacher Prajnatara. What remains central is the understanding that awakening was not approached only as an intellectual philosophy, but as a living practice involving meditation, discipline, awareness, and the cultivation of the whole human being.
The exercises presented within Love and Truth were transmitted to me through the Shaolin lineage in which I trained. They belong to a much larger traditional system whose depth, discipline, and devotional commitment can require years, or a lifetime, of dedicated practice.
Over decades of living and working with this training, however, something essential within the practice began to reveal itself more clearly to me. I came to recognize a foundational sequence within these exercises: the capacity to bring the body, heart, and mind into greater harmony and return the human system toward an open, relaxed, and alert state of presence.
Love and Truth preserves this foundation while adapting the practice to the realities of contemporary life.
The intention is not to replace, recreate, or simplify the traditional Shaolin path, but to make some of its essential principles accessible to people who may never enter a monastery, martial arts school, or lifelong devotional discipline. The exercises become part of a practical daily method through which anyone sincerely interested can begin exploring alignment, self-awareness, intuition, and creative flow.
Practiced consciously, each movement becomes more than physical exercise. It becomes a way of listening to the body, quieting unnecessary tension, opening the heart, clarifying the mind, and allowing these dimensions to function increasingly as one coherent system.
In this way, an ancient practice transmitted through lineage becomes a living practice for the present, honoring where it came from while allowing its essential wisdom to serve the life we are living now.
The practice can be approached at any age and adapted to different levels of physical ability, allowing each person to begin sincerely from where they are.
( This exercise outline is a guide for students who have already been formally introduced to the practice. )
Active Meditation Notes:
Breathe: in thru the nose, out thru the mouth. Breathe from the Tan Tien (the Chi life force well) that is located just below your belly button. Remember to breathe properly, synchronized to the movements as was demonstrated in class, with the tongue lightly pressed against the roof of the mouth.
Practice presence: Place attention on each exercise as they are being performed in the moment, aligning the breath, heart and mind with each movement. Keep the mind open (non judgmental / without opinion) and the heart relaxed and loving (true natural state) while being guided by the higher mind (intuition source) not the lower conditioned mind (ego).
The Complete alignment system: Each exercise and the specific order in which they are performed is designed to harmonize every aspect of the human system from head to toe. The techniques when done correctly, create body, heart, and mind alignment, releases resistance / tension blockages everywhere and activates the intuitive heart guidance system to experience living fully!
Experiencing the intuitive “higher mind” comes from consistent practice of the love & Truth meditation to create a gap between the witness (true self) and the mind. Trust the flow.
Upper Body Exercises
Formal bow.
- Wrist exercises – Shake out the wrists / turn both directions.
- Ankle exercises – Shake out the ankles / turn both directions.
- Trunk twisting – slow way / fast way, 10 times each.
- Neck exercises – Slow way (with dynamic tension) / then relaxed roll head in full circle both directions.
- Arm swinging exercises – Circular in both directions (alternating for advanced students). Cross at elbows. Start off slowly and slowly pick up pace to as fast as you can then slow down to a complete stop.
- Finger grabbing exercises – A. Arms in front, palms facing down – slow then fast. B. Arms in front, palms facing up – slow then fast. C. Arms to side, palms facing down – slow then fast. D. Arms to side, palms facing up – slow then fast. Tight fists on last grab, sink in stance.
- Arm Raises (Hands behind back) – Start with arms facing forward then go behind the back and pushing upwards 5 times. Alternating hands, holding wrists, do this 5 times.
- Touching Toes – Arms and hands fully extended with feet shoulder with apart. Exhale as fingers / arms stay at 90 degrees going down, touching the toes. Then inhale as arms / hands come back up and continue over backwards as far as you can go behind you, to full exhale.
- Stomach / palm heart hitting – Forearms to both sides. Then with palms over Soloplexis (for advanced).
Lower Body Exercises
- Palm to the floor – Feet in a wide stance, joints never locked with arms to sides, palms facing down. Palms touch the opposite toes / floor. Alternate hands, slow way / fast way 10 times each.
- Side switching exercises – Slow way then fast way, legs at 90 degrees, hold last two, 10 times each
- Side stretching exercises – With knife edge, toes pointing forward, 10 times.
- Side stretching exercises – Toes pointed up on heels, slow then fast, 10 times.
- Maximum Stretch exercises – Feet pointed forward and wide apart, bring face towards floor, 10 times.
Formal Bow.
Developing Flexibility in body, heart and mind are key to experience the grace of a creative flow state. The class structure integrates special exercise challenges specifically designed to develop these aspects and upgrade the nervous system. This provides real world benefit for the student to utilize what they learned in class with stressful situations of daily life. When the Love and Truth practice is applied to life circumstances, any challenge can become transformed into an opportunity (personal evolution).
Follow Along Exercise Video
This video is accessible for students who have already been introduced to the practice.
About
I began practicing Shaolin Kung Fu at eighteen and had the profound fortune of studying under an extraordinary master. With deep commitment and a beginner’s mind, I approached the practice with reverence. In time, I became an assistant teacher and began witnessing how the principles of the practice influenced every dimension of my life.
With an investigative mind and an enduring desire to learn, I became a student of life, continually exploring new tools, modalities, philosophies, and wisdom traditions from around the world. Beneath all of this inquiry was one central question: How could I live the dreams I could already feel within my heart?
Again and again, my research, intuition, and experience brought me back to the foundational principles I had encountered through Shaolin practice. I began using my own life as the experiment, exploring whether alignment of body, heart, and mind could allow the deeper truth of who I am to become increasingly expressed through the life I was creating.
After more than thirty-five years of practice, Love and Truth emerged as the distilled expression of this lifelong exploration, deeply inspired by the foundations I first encountered through Shaolin training. My marriage, family, creative work, environments, and the path I have chosen to live have become tangible expressions of what I experience when inner alignment and outer life begin moving together.
I have also experienced the practice as foundational to my own physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Daily alignment exercises and active meditation continually return me toward an open, relaxed, and alert state of presence, where I can listen more clearly to the signals of body, heart, and mind and respond consciously to what life presents.
Although I trained students for many years within the traditional Shaolin system, today I share the essential practice of Love and Truth with those drawn to these principles and seeking greater alignment, self-awareness, creative flow, and well-being.
“To experience creative flow and become a living expression of the true Love within is the greatest treasure I am aware of.”
“When we surrender to the flow,
life and dream become one.”
