The first part of the book shares the cover title "Christ and the Eternal Tao," and contains what abbot Damascene calls a "New Testament of the Tao Te Ching."
This "New Testament of the Tao Te Ching" contains 81 poems inspired by the lyrical and aphoristic style of the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching. Throughout the poems quotations from Laozi (Lao Tzu), who is described as "the Ancient Sage" and "follower of the Way," are juxtaposed with quotations from the gospels. The effect is to show how intimations of the Way, as grasped by Laozi 500 years before Christ, are brought to their culmination in the Incarnation. For example, as I've pointed out before, when Chinese Christians have translated John 1 they translate the Greek "logos" as "Dao." Thus, "In the beginning was the Way, and the Way was with God and the Way was God...And the Way became flesh and dwelt among us." The "New Testament of the Tao Te Ching," therefore, reads the Tao Te Ching through a Christological lens.
Beyond noticing correspondences between the Tao Te Ching and the gospels, much of the "New Testament of the Tao Te Ching" is a meditation upon the shape and nature of "the Way" as revealed in Christ. The vision is both familiar and fresh. Insights from the Tao Te Ching are refracted through an Orthodox monastic spirituality, a conversation between the Tao Te Ching and the Philokalia.
To give you a taste, here is Chapter 60:
"Love your neighbor as yourself," said the Way.
Through love of neighbor do we enter into love of the Way:
For our neighbor is the image of the Way;
And thus the Way accepts what we do for our neighbor as if it were done for Him.
When this realization is kept constantly in mind,
It becomes the source of the purest love of our neighbor.
"And who is my neighbor?" the Way was asked.
Our neighbor is whomever the Way puts before us:
Insider or outcast,
Faithful or unfaithful,
Friend or foe,
Help or burden,
Encourager or reviler,
Rescuer or murderer.
Therefore said the Ancient Sage,
"Even if people be bad, why should they be rejected?
The holy man takes care of all people,
And in consequence there is no rejected person."
Love for neighbor, then, is love for all equally,
And equally with ourselves.
Perfect love is the summit of detachment;
It knows no distinction between one's own and another's,
Between male and female,
Between black and white.
Such a single, simple love has a single cause:
The Way Who is honored and loved in every neighbor.
Through love of neighbor do we enter into love of the Way;
And as the former grows in us, so does the latter,
Until at last the Way is all in all,
And we forget ourselves.
Then love becomes a depth of illumination,
A fountain of fire inflaming the thirsty soul.
Growth is added to growth.
Love is the progress of eternity.
