[Buddha-l] Shamatha book--clarification

[curt]

Alex Wilding wrote:
> I have to say that I don't truly follow what this issue of "breaking with my
> own culture" is about.
> I am English and have inherited a slice of European culture - I was
> privileged to experience a little of the best of that culture in, for
> instance, my university days. I love it - the choir; the mossy stone walls
> of the quad; the cathedral and its bell; the deep silence of the library;
> strawberries, cream and champagne on the river. As part of that culture I
> was introduced, starting in the early 60s, to streams of thought from
> outside Europe, and took to that too. My first Buddhist retreat was at a
> centre in a leafy English village - old thatched houses, redbrick cottages,
> the church whose bell can be heard in the shrine room, the pub, the war
> memorial: quintessential England, and no less so because of being home to a
> Buddhist centre. Some of my fondest memories are associated with Buddhist
> retreats, studies and activities in places like East Anglia, Birmingham (the
> original one in the West Midlands of England), the Black Forest, West Cork,
> Kham and Kathmandu - these are the settings for the stories that might come
> to mind late of an evening around a comfortable fire.
> Can somebody please tell me - when did I break with my culture?
>
>
>   
Seeing as how there were temples to Isis and Mithras in jolly old 
England 2000 years ago, you seem to be carrying on a fine tradition.

- Curt