Zen and the Mystic Impulse

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Michael Beas

Arnie Lade spent fifty years practicing and teaching acupuncture and energetic healing, and somewhere in the middle of all that he encountered Willigis Jäger, a Benedictine monk, priest, and Zen Master whose teachings would quietly reorganize everything Lade thought he understood about spiritual life. Zen and the Mystic Impulse is his account of that encounter, and it is one of the most genuinely humble and luminous books in the current contemplative literature.

The figure at the center of the book is remarkable in his own right. Willigis Jäger was not a man who inhabited the boundaries between traditions; he dissolved them. A Catholic Benedictine and a fully authorized Zen teacher simultaneously, he spent his life pointing toward what he called the Sophia Perennis, the universal spiritual connection underlying all religious traditions. For Jäger, the mystic impulse was not the property of any particular faith. It was the deep human yearning for connection with something beyond the self, and it called to people regardless of the path they walked.

What makes Lade's treatment of these teachings so trustworthy is the intimacy behind it. This is not a scholar writing about a subject. It is a student writing about a teacher who changed him, with all the specific, irreplaceable texture that kind of relationship carries. Richard Bryan McDaniel, author of The Story of Zen, called it deserving of a slow, reflective reading, and that assessment is exactly right. The book rewards patience. It is not trying to impress you. It is trying to create space, which is a considerably more difficult thing to do on the page.

At 133 pages, it does not overstay its welcome. Lade knows that the kind of wisdom Jäger embodied cannot be explained into someone. It can only be pointed toward, and he points with great care.

For anyone who has sensed that the mystic impulse exists in themselves but has never quite found a tradition that fully holds it, this book is a gentle and genuinely expansive guide toward that deeper belonging.

About the Author

Arnie Lade

Arnie Lade is an internationally recognized author, teacher, and healer.

He now devotes his time to teaching Zen meditation and awareness-based practices. He studied under Willigis Jäger, a Benedictine monk and Zen master, and began teaching Zen meditation in 2013 within the Empty Cloud lineage (Zen-Linie Leere Wolke) under Jäger’s guidance. And in 2020, Arnie completed the three-year Embodied Life Mentorship Program™, developed by Russell and Linda Delman. This program combines teachings from Zen meditation, the Feldenkrais Method, and Guided Inquiry (based on Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing).

Arnie’s healing practice spanned 50 years in the healing and movement arts. He initially trained in Polarity therapy, massage, and manipulative therapies. He studied acupuncture in China in the early 1980s, and his education continued with CranioSacral and visceral manipulation in the late 1980s. He later pursued the Feldenkrais Method, graduating from the professional Seattle/Sun Valley Feldenkrais Teacher Training Program in 2001.

Arnie has authored several books, including Energetic Healing: Embracing the Life Force (1999) and Acupuncture Points: Images and Functions (1989). He also co-authored Tao and Dharma: Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda (1995) with Robert Svoboda, and contributed to Chinese Exercises and Massage (1988).

His most recent book, Zen and the Mystic Impulse, explores the teachings of his Zen Master, Willigis Jäger, and will be released in 2025.