[Buddha-l] Shamatha book--clarification

[Alex Wilding]

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?
Alex W