Finding Inner Peace: Do You Need to Be a Buddhist?

About this episode

Steven Webb explores whether one needs to identify as a Buddhist to achieve inner peace, sharing personal insights and philosophical reflections.

Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work. Donate paypal.me/stevenwebb or Coffee stevenwebb.uk Steven's courses , podcasts and links : stevenwebb.uk Finding Inner Peace: Do You Need to Be a Buddhist? Host: Steven Webb Website: stevenwebb.uk Have you ever caught yourself collecting meditation apps, lining up Buddhist statues on a shelf, and wondering if you're doing peace wrong? In this honest Sunday morning episode — recorded while recovering from an operation and still on painkillers — Steven asks a question that quietly nags at a lot of seekers: do you actually need to call yourself a Buddhist to find inner peace? Steven traces his own path from collecting the accessories of Buddhism to hitting rock bottom at forty, when inner peace stopped being a nice idea and became something he genuinely needed. What he found was that suffering doesn't come from life itself — it comes from our relationship to it. The clinging. The resistance. The stories we tell ourselves about what should be happening instead of what is. Drawing on Alan Watts's famous reminder that "the menu is not the meal," Steven makes a gentle but clear distinction: the label, the tradition, the…

People in this episode

Host: Steven Webb

Topics covered

• inner peace
• Buddhism
• meditation
• suffering
• self-relationship
• awakening

Keywords

• inner peace
• Buddhism
• meditation
• suffering
• awakening
• self-relationship
• Alan Watts

More episodes of Stillness in the Storms

• The First 30 Seconds: Why Every Feeling Is a Gift · May 31, 2026 · 16 min
• Waking Up to Body Betrayal: How to Find Peace in the Pain · May 17, 2026 · 16 min
• "I'm Fine": When It's Armour, When It's Honest, and How to Tell · May 3, 2026 · 22 min
• 8 Billion Minds. Why Meditation Doesn't Work for Everyone (And What You Can Do About It) · April 26, 2026 · 23 min
• Demystifying Meditation: What You Need to Know · April 18, 2026 · 30 min
• The Dignity of Being Tired: Give Yourself a Break · April 11, 2026 · 16 min