On tonights show, William Woollard reads Chapter 4 from his wonderful book, The Reluctant Buddhist. The chapter is called A Question of Faith and its a great listen.

Also on tonight we have an experience from Estelle Jackson, a member of the Students Division in SGI-UK.

As usual we have shoutouts that criss cross the world and music from the Podsafe Music Network. We play Vittoria Conn's track called Mirror and a podcasting anthem, Not On The Radio by Geoff Smith.

The show tonight is absolutely packed! We know we have been sometime in getting you a show and so tonights episode lasts for 78 minutes or so, so it will fit on a CD if you want to burn it for a friend!

We have some more shows ready for you and are looking forward to putting them out in the next few weeks! Thank you for your support and encouragement, we do appreciate it so much. Have a wonderful week!

Welcome to another episode of A Buddhist Podcast. Tonight we continue with our new series of lectures on the Jigage portion of Gongyo by looking at the meaning of the words, Nyorai Juryo hon dai juroku! Haven't you ever wondered what it means? This poem of life is so amazing. Some of the headings include:

What does gongyo mean?

Lotus Sutra for the Latter Day of the Law

Wisdom illuminates ignorance

Nichiren Daishonin, the true Buddha

Causing the sun of hope to dawn

Shelley on Dante

A practice to perpetuate

Every character is a shining buddha

Living the poem of life

You can't use force to create change

Our victories are your victories

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Seek out your true self!

Live like the waterfall

Once again the music for tonights show is a blatant expression of how much we love the music of Cat Malojian! We play Pettigoe and Life Rolls On, which you can find on iTunes!

Thank you for all the comments, emails and messages of support, we truly appreciate every single last one of them. One last point, our love goes out to Dash and Donna, we are so happy to know that Donna is out of hospital and on the mend!

Have a wonderful week.

Finally, we are back! We are so pleased to do this show tonight, so pleased to be able to share this with you! After 3 years we have decided to finish our lecture series on Gongyo! Tonights lecture is an introduction to the Juryo Chapter, the 16th Chapter of the Lotus Sutra, known as the Lifespan Chapter! Some of the headings include:

Traveller

Where do we come from and where are we going?

How can life be eternal if we all die?

Overview of the Lotus Sutra

Eternity is an aspect of life

Do you ride the shopping trolley of life?

Mentor and Disciple

Nichiren the human being

White knuckle daimoku

Our lives are one with the universe

We are the Bodhisattvas of the Earth

Striving for self worth

Unprecedented Challenge

Music for tonights show comes from the great talent of Cat Malojian! These two lads from Northern Ireland make great music, and we love it. Tonight they play Who Knows? and Goodnight. If you like their music, pop over to ITunes and buy some!

Thank you for all your messages of support and encouragement, we hope you enjoy tonights show!

Another full show!

Tonights lecture is on Nichiren Daishonin's teaching called, On The Buddha's Prophecy. The lecture is about the purpose of Buddhist practice. Some of the headings include:

A Leap Month!

Life at Ichinosawa

Bodhisattva Medicine King

Former, Middle and Latter Day of the Law

Doing time in the "When I" Prison

The teaching, the teacher and the mission

What did the priests do for 700 years?

The Soka Gakkai fullfills the Buddha's Prophecy

Its time to create happiness

We have President Ikeda's New Year's message for 2009, read by Ken George. There are shoutouts and music from Ioda Promonet including "Balance" by Sara Tavares which you can buy here at iTunes Music Store

The second track we play tonight is by Cohen which is also availabe here!Gold Is Where You Find It (mp3)

We are proud members of the Ioda Alliance!

Thankyou for all your support and encouragement! Have a fantastic week.

Tonights show is so full!

Tonights lectures is based on guidance that President Ikeda gave earlier this year about the four points for victory. The four points are Prayer, Action, Unity and the Oneness of Mentor and Disciple. This lecture is about the second theme, Action! The main points of the lecture include:

Developing our own individual attitude to faith

Taking responsibility for the happiness of where we live

The roar of the tiger of death

Take the initiative and make new friends

We reveal buddhahood in our behaviour

The old man in the park

What is the Buddha's great teaching?

Living with my mentor

Three powerful enemies

If not you then who?

We have a poem from Rabindranath Tagore called The Stream of Life. The music to accompany this poem is the Indian National Anthem, the words of which were also written by Rabindranath Tagore.

We have a question, and a lot of shoutouts from around the world.

We have music, courtesy of Promonet tonight! We have Be the Change from the album Elephant Power by MC Yogi. We also have Atlas from the album Arabesque by Belly Dance which you can buy here at ITunes!

We are proud members of the Ioda Alliance!

We would also like to express our thanks to Anji Bee for her help in finding music for this show. Anji has a great podcast and we are both big fans of her band the Love Spirals.

Have you ever wanted an explanation of where this Buddhism came from to give to your friends or family to help explain your practice? Well that is what the substance of tonights show is! William Woollard reads Chapter 3 from his extraordinary book, The Reluctant Buddhist!

We have shoutouts and the music tonight comes from Beth Thornley. Its not like us to only play one artist, but we liked both of the tracks! So from Beth Thornley we play Mr Lovely and Birmingham. As usual we are very grateful to the Podsafe Music Network for providing us with the ability to play this music on our show.

We are working on two new shows which will be appearing in the next few weeks! Thank you so much for listening to the show and for all your wonderful feedback. Have a great week and take care of yourselves and the people around you.

Tonight's show is a bit of an experiment! For some time now we have had a lot of requests from listeners to provide support for the level 2 study courses that are taking place in Europe at the moment. This study will culminate in an exam in mid November for those who want to take it. William Woollard has also had many requests for support in this activity, so we have got together to produce a special edition show!

The exam consists of 5 sections, A, B, C, D and E. Each section has a number of questions. In the exam you will be asked one question from each section. On this podcast, William has prepared an answer for every question. It is NOT a model answer but the kind of answer that William would make based upon the study material provided. Remember the questions require you to use the study material rather than your existing knowledge.

If you are not a member of SGI in Europe at the moment but you would like to follow along, you can hop over to this site and download the study material we are looking at! Remember you need to look for the Grade 2 material.

If you are doing the Grade 1 study course, you still might find value in listening to the show as both Grade 1 and Grade 2 share the same questions in Section E about the Priesthood.

In between all of this study material, we have still found time for some music. On tonight's show we play a wonderful track by Black Lab called Lonely Boy and for the second time on the show Great Day by the amazing Jody Gnant. Music courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network

Thank you for downloading the show! We have a great show coming up in 2 weeks so keep an eye out for it! Thank you as well for all your support.

Well we have a bit of an extravaganza for you this week! Kicking of the show is William Woollard who completes the second half of Chapter 1 from The Reluctant Buddhist. Karen reads a truly inspiring contribution from Cindy Woodland from Canada! We have more shoutouts that cross the globe and we attempt to answer a question about how we as parents interest our children in Buddhist Practice.

Tonight we play three tracks from the Podsafe Music Network, Anduze with Just Feel Good, Lee Coulter with I Would Love and Black Lab with Broken Heart!.

Keep a look out for a special show coming out next week. William Woollard has put together some great study material surrounding the Level 2 Study Exam that is taking place in Europe in November.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the show, for writing to let us know how you feel about about it, for your encouragement on Facebook and for the great comments on the website. From the bottom of our hearts, Thank you! Have a wonderful week.

Thanks to Jessica Miller who not only did the wonderful artwork for tonights show but also came up with the idea of asking Kevin Robinson to give tonights lecture. Kevin originally gave this lecture at the North London Area Course at Trets in September this year (2008).

I travelled up to London and we recorded this lecture at Kevin's wonderful home. Its about Prayer and we hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed recording and putting it together!

Great shoutouts from the wonderful Karen and some wonderful music from Mark Erelli singing The Only Way and Bob Gentry singing Goldie Hawn! Both tracks are available from the Podsafe Music Network.

Again we had planned to play the second half of William Woollards Chapter 1 tonight. However, we wanted to include an interview that we are working on but we did not manage to get it done in time! Bear with us and we hope the next show will include the second half!

Thank you so much for listening and for your encouraging comments and emails. Enjoy the show and have a great week.

Tonights show is a lecture on Nichiren Daishonin's letter called 'Reply to Sairen-bo'.The theme is once more on the mentor disciple relationship . Themes include:

Trapped for 3 score years and 10

The disciple chooses the mentor

What is Buddhahood?

Devil kings and demons

I don't want to spend my life in the toilet of mankind

What qualifies the mentor?

Creating a whirlpool of joy.

In honour of 25 years playing music, we play, from the Podsafe Music Network, Howard Jones and his song Building our own Future. We are also lucky enough to have a great track from Peter Robinson called Roar of the Wind for the men of the South of England.

Originally we had planned to play the second half of William Woollards Chapter 1 tonight. However, we wanted to include an interview that we are working on but we did not manage to get it done in time! So the next show will include the second half!

Thank you for listening and for your encouragement comments and kind emails. Your support is really welcomed, have a great week.