Episode 161
Finding Inner Peace: Do You Need to Be a Buddhist?
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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 institution — that's the menu. The direct experience of stillness, right where you are — that's the meal. He also explores Jun Po Denis Kelly's Mondo Zen approach, where awakening isn't reserved for monasteries but happens in ordinary, messy, everyday life.
Along the way, Steven touches on the different branches of Buddhism — Theravada, Mahayana, Tibetan, Zen — and points out that the core practices of meditation, mindful awareness, and compassion don't ask you to believe in anything at all. He shares one of his favourite insights: that every one of us interprets reality differently through our own senses and brain — and understanding that simple fact is where real compassion begins.
Steven's conclusion? He's not a Buddhist. Not really a Christian either. But the teachings of compassion, understanding, and love that run through all traditions? Those he agrees with completely. And the world, he says, could use a lot more of all three.
Key Takeaways
- Suffering comes from our relationship to life, not from life itself. It's the clinging and the resistance that create the pain, not the circumstances.
- The menu is not the meal. Labels, traditions, and institutions point toward inner peace — but they aren't the experience itself. Direct stillness is.
- You don't need to be a Buddhist to practise Buddhism's core teachings. Meditation, mindful awareness, and compassion require no belief system.
- Awakening happens in ordinary life. Jun Po Denis Kelly's Mondo Zen reminds us that you don't need a monastery — you need honesty and presence, right where you are.
- We all experience reality differently. Understanding that each person's brain interprets the world in its own way is the beginning of genuine compassion.
- Enlightenment isn't a permanent state. There are more enlightened moments and less enlightened moments — and that's perfectly fine.
- Compassion is the common ground. Across every tradition, the call is the same: more understanding, more love, more kindness.
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Stay curious, and I love you.
Steven
Transcript
Welcome to Stillness in the Storms.
Speaker A:I'm Stephen Webb, A very sore Stephen Webb.
Speaker A:I went in and had an operation on Thursday, and it's now Sunday morning, and I am on painkillers.
Speaker A:So who knows where this podcast might end up going?
Speaker A:But I want to talk about a question that I've had more than once, and I've probably thought about it myself as well.
Speaker A:Do you have to be a Buddhist to find real inner peace?
Speaker A:And around my house, I've got Buddha statues, I've got pictures on the wall.
Speaker A:And I love the whole Buddhism and the way it gives you that bit of calmness around the house and just the teachings and things like that.
Speaker A:But I had them way before I really knew what Buddhism was about.
Speaker A:I didn't know the difference between the Chinese Buddha that's there with his belly hanging out and all his riches laughing and Siddhartha, the different Buddha.
Speaker A:In actual fact, I think he's the sixth or seventh Buddha.
Speaker A:I didn't know at that point that we're all Buddhas and we take away the noise and we take away the small mind.
Speaker A:We're all Buddhas at heart in some way when we strip away the layers.
Speaker A:And really, I just wanted that piece to, like, I suppose, rub off on me in some way.
Speaker A:And it's the same way when you go into church and you sit down.
Speaker A:We got Truro Cathedral locally, and if I go and sit in there, there's just a calm presence about it, very similar to if you go and sit in a park.
Speaker A:The birds always seem nice and calm and nature seems calm.
Speaker A:The river seems calm about most of the time, unless we've had change of rain.
Speaker A:So on today's podcast, I'm answering the question, do you have to be a Buddhist monk or a real staunch Buddhist in order to find real, genuine inner peace?
Speaker A:So I'm glad you can join me.
Speaker A:So, as I said earlier, welcome to Stillness in the Storms.
Speaker A:I'm Stephen Webb, and this is a space for anyone navigating difficult times and looking for something deeper.
Speaker A:Not a quick fix, not a life hack, just a real conversation about finding inner peace and, well, when you need it most, when you have it at least.
Speaker A:So welcome.
Speaker A:So after collecting statues and pictures and different things with Buddhism, I've even had books that I never read and just diving into the odd meme and sharing the odd meme on Facebook and downloading apps for meditation, but not actually doing anything with them.
Speaker A:I hit my rock bottom at the age of 40 and I was really suffering.
Speaker A:And instead of, like, playing with this inner peace and wanting a bit of quiet calmness in my life.
Speaker A:I really needed it at that point.
Speaker A:So that was when I had to pick up the books and all that and go, do you know what?
Speaker A:I can't just rely on a statue on my windowsill anymore.
Speaker A:That app that I put on once a month and play the old meditation.
Speaker A:I really need this because I am on a cliff's edge and I am at rock bottom.
Speaker A:And that's when I started understanding what Buddhism really was and the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
Speaker A:And then I found a couple of my teachers and things like that.
Speaker A:And it wasn't until then that I understood, you know, there's a difference between the philosophical understanding of Buddhism and many other religions, and then there's the practicing of it.
Speaker A:And I think this is where I think it's really important to understand.
Speaker A:What Buddhism gives you is a teaching of just open your heart and be compassionate, be caring.
Speaker A:But it also gives you the practices in order to do that.
Speaker A:It doesn't say you've got to become a Buddhist.
Speaker A:It doesn't say you've got to meditate four hours a day every single day, and go into a Buddhist monastery and study script for the next 10, 20, 30 years.
Speaker A:It says it would help.
Speaker A:If you want genuine, real, lasting inner peace, you need to do that.
Speaker A:But it also says you need to do that for about five, 6,000 years, and you need to do that on the return every time you come back.
Speaker A:And the reincarnation, to some degree, it's not quite as simple as reincarnation, where the spirit or the soul or whatever you want to call it in Buddhism, it just comes back.
Speaker A:And every, Every life that we do that apparently is.
Speaker A:This is, as far as I understand it, every life that we do, and we go deeper and deeper, we just get a slight head start next time round.
Speaker A:And that doesn't mean that I don't know if I subscribe to that, but whichever way it is, that's basically the continuation of Buddhism.
Speaker A:So let's go back to what Buddhism is actually.
Speaker A:And I have to be a bit careful here because I'm not a scholar.
Speaker A:I am just somebody that wanted some inner peace and studied it.
Speaker A:And I'm just repeating what I heard from my teachers.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean that's what they were saying.
Speaker A:It's what I heard.
Speaker A:And I may not be right.
Speaker A:And the core idea is that, and this is the bit I keep coming back to, that a lot of our suffering is not from life itself, but our Relationship to it, from the clinging, our resistance, the resistance that things should be different from the way they are.
Speaker A:We don't like this moment.
Speaker A:We want it different.
Speaker A:We're trying to change what we cannot change.
Speaker A:The Buddha didn't say life is supposed to be comfortable.
Speaker A:He said quite the opposite.
Speaker A:He said, look, clearly it exists.
Speaker A:Experience.
Speaker A:Don't turn away from it.
Speaker A:See it as it is.
Speaker A:And paradoxically, when you stop fighting it, something eases.
Speaker A:Not because hard things go away, but because you're no longer adding a second layer of suffering on top of it.
Speaker A:The suffering of thinking that it shouldn't be happening to you.
Speaker A:Does that require the robes and the rituals and the name and a specific set of beliefs?
Speaker A:I really don't think so.
Speaker A:And some of the wisest people I've ever encountered on this path would also agree because they're not Buddhist either.
Speaker A:So Alan Watts, who I return to a lot, and I know a lot of you do too, as well, that he spent a big chunk of his life doing exactly this, taking Buddhism, Taoist, Hindu ideas, and translating them all into a language that ordinary Western people could actually work with.
Speaker A:Not watering it down, just making them livable and making them accessible.
Speaker A:Watts had his wonderful ability to point something quite profound and make it feel like, rather than just understand it intellectually.
Speaker A:He'd say something like, the menu is not the meal.
Speaker A:And what he meant by that is that the concept of Buddhism, the label, the institution, the tradition, that's the menu.
Speaker A:But what you're actually put in your mouth, what actually nourishes you, is the direct experience of stillness, of presence, of this moment right now.
Speaker A:He wasn't interested in the institution.
Speaker A:He was interested in the experience the institution was pointing to.
Speaker A:And I guess that's where I am as well.
Speaker A:It points to a stillness.
Speaker A:It points to a quiet calmness beneath all the noise.
Speaker A:And that's what I'm interested in.
Speaker A:That's what I try to return to as much as possible when situations are difficult.
Speaker A:When I'm lying in the bed and I'm in so much pain, I point to what's beyond that pain, what's before the pain arises and you start to realize the impermanence nature, that this pain won't be forever, later on today or later on next week.
Speaker A:And then we suddenly stop fighting.
Speaker A:We go, okay, let's have the pain now.
Speaker A:What does the pain feel like?
Speaker A:What color is it?
Speaker A:Where is it to go?
Speaker A:Real Western psychology on these kind of things.
Speaker A:And then when we start fighting it, the pain suddenly just, oh, he's took notice of me.
Speaker A:Oh, that's all right then.
Speaker A:I don't have to keep screaming.
Speaker A:It's funny how much the body screams at us when we don't take notice of it.
Speaker A:So just do a side note.
Speaker A:This podcast has no adverts, no sponsors.
Speaker A:Nobody is paying me to tell you anything.
Speaker A:The only real reason Stillness in the Storm exists is and the only reason these conversations keep happening is because of incredible kind people who treat me to a coffee.
Speaker A:These small donations pay for everything.
Speaker A:The hosting, the editing, the equipment, all of it.
Speaker A:So I want to say a big huge thank you to the three new monthly supporters, Stephen, Kalin and Alison, and then the one time supporters, although many of them have donated more than once.
Speaker A:So Femke, Hannah, Andrew, Tracy, Helen, Tiffany, Lynn, Jem, Ulysses, an anonymous supporter, Sujeta, Jess, Lee, I'm not sure who how you spelled or pronounced.
Speaker A:Griet, Cheryl and Chrysia.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:You are all awesome and you all keep this podcast free from adverts so I can go.
Speaker A:Let's get straight back into it.
Speaker A:So I want to address the thing that I think one of the things that puts people off, and I'm not talking about the six hours of meditation and they go into the Buddhist and shaving the head and all that.
Speaker A:I'm talking about some of its beliefs.
Speaker A:Because when people hear about Buddhism, I sometimes hear that you have to believe in reincarnation.
Speaker A:You have to believe that you lived before.
Speaker A:You have to believe in karma as a kind of universal system, justice.
Speaker A:And a lot of people, people that have come especially from the science background, people who've had complicated, painful experiences with organized religion, people who just don't want to swap one set of dogmas for another.
Speaker A:There's a wall there and I can really understand it.
Speaker A:And I want to be very honest with you.
Speaker A:Some strands of Buddhism do emphasize these beliefs.
Speaker A:It's a diverse tradition.
Speaker A:Their father, the Mahayana, the Tibetan, the Zen.
Speaker A:And they're not all the same.
Speaker A:Some of them lean into the metaphysical belief beyond and quite heavily into it.
Speaker A:But here's what I keep coming back to.
Speaker A:The core principles.
Speaker A:Meditation, mindful awareness, compassion for self and others, sitting with what really is rather than fighting it.
Speaker A:None of these require you to believe in anything at all.
Speaker A:But here's what I keep coming back to the core practices.
Speaker A:Meditation, mindful awareness, compassion for self and for others, sitting with what is rather than fighting it.
Speaker A:And none of these require you to believe in anything at all.
Speaker A:They're just experiences, experiments.
Speaker A:They're things for you to try Things for you to notice what happens.
Speaker A:The laboratory is really your own experience and junpo Dennis Kelly, my teacher, can't believe he's passed away five years now.
Speaker A:But through a mondo Zen process, he really did open my heart and he just helped me to understand what's happening in our bodies, in the world.
Speaker A:And just by framing things a little bit different in a way that I understood made a huge difference.
Speaker A:He frames awakening not as something that happens to religious people or monasteries, but as something that can happen in the middle of an ordinary human life.
Speaker A:How do I find my inner peace?
Speaker A:Well, I pick and choose and I cherry pick with what feels right for me.
Speaker A:And I often say that if you've got more compassion for yourself and you're being kinder to yourself, you're kinder to those people around you, you're having experiencing more inner peace.
Speaker A:You're seeing things as they are.
Speaker A:You're not getting caught up in rouse and you're not getting caught up in arguments and things like that.
Speaker A:Then it's working, you're on the right track.
Speaker A:Jim Poe Dennis Kelly my, probably one of my main teachers, he would, he taught me that whatever feelings arise, you can look at the feeling, but you don't have to do anything with it or if you choose to do somewhere, do something productive with it.
Speaker A:So if you're angry, that's brilliant.
Speaker A:Write a letter to the governor.
Speaker A:If you're angry about the Trump situation or another situation in politics, great.
Speaker A:Do something peaceful and compassionate.
Speaker A:Show a different story, write a letter, do what you can at arm's length.
Speaker A:You don't have to use that anger to do something violent.
Speaker A:And the same as with loneliness, if that occurs, just be lonely for a little bit, that's okay.
Speaker A:And if you have an overwhelming need for lust or desire, sit with it, be okay, say, ah, this is what's arising right now.
Speaker A:And he just made me understand the point that where all this arises is a point of caring, a point of compassion.
Speaker A:And we all have that in us.
Speaker A:Every single one of us from a really small age can pinpoint a time when we had a compassionate response to a situation where it could have gone the other way.
Speaker A:So we're all capable of being enlightened, having enlightened moments, and we're all capable of not having enlightened moments.
Speaker A:The only difference is the more you meditate, the more you study, the more you work on seeing what's arising and intercepting it with that bit of a gap and responding in a compassionate way, you have less unenlightened moments.
Speaker A:And you have more enlightened moments.
Speaker A:There's no such thing.
Speaker A:And I really do agree with Jumper on this.
Speaker A:I don't think you get to a point where I'm enlightened.
Speaker A:Now, that's it.
Speaker A:I can stop doing my training, I can stop doing my meditation.
Speaker A:I'm now going to be kind and compassionate to everybody.
Speaker A:If you think that's the case, don't meditate for a week.
Speaker A:You'll quickly find out that I need to return to the cushion.
Speaker A:When I say return to the cushion, I don't mean you got to go on retreat and you got to sit down cross legged and hum.
Speaker A:I mean just that, put on a guided meditation.
Speaker A:It's a couple of times a day.
Speaker A:Just sit down and observe your thoughts.
Speaker A:Just take time out properly.
Speaker A:If you sat next to a river, listen to the river and understand that your ears cannot hear it and your mind's just interpreting the signals from your ears.
Speaker A:Your eyes don't see anything.
Speaker A:Your eyes just have a mirrored image of what's outside in the world and it goes onto the back of your eyes and it sends it to your brain.
Speaker A:Your brain translates everything and your brain doesn't see everything.
Speaker A:Exact.
Speaker A:That's why we all see different colors.
Speaker A:That's why we'll argue with our relatives that, well, that's not the way I seen it, not the way I heard it.
Speaker A:Because we're interpreting everything, our whole lives either.
Speaker A:And this is what gives us more inner peace.
Speaker A:It gives us less arguing, it gives us less confrontation and more compassion.
Speaker A:We understand that the other person may have it wrong, but not because they're wrong, but because they've seen it or felt it differently.
Speaker A:Or we could have been wrong, we could have seen it and felt it differently.
Speaker A:And there's just as much chance that we've seen it or heard it differently than they did.
Speaker A:That's compassion.
Speaker A:It's understanding.
Speaker A:So do you need to be a Buddhist?
Speaker A:Do you need to go into monastery?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:It would really help.
Speaker A:When you haven't got the outside world and you haven't got the news and you haven't got that doing it in the real world is really hard.
Speaker A:Doing it at a family barbecue is really, really hard.
Speaker A:That is, if you can manage to do it living at home with your parents after you moved out for 10 years, then you're doing better than any monk in any Buddhist monastery.
Speaker A:Because if you can find compassion in those circumstances, then you got it, you're doing all right.
Speaker A:So I got to be honest, I'm getting tired now, and I want to wrap this up, but I really wanted to get a podcast out to you and I don't know how coherent this podcast has been.
Speaker A:I've got to go and edit it in a minute and I. I got a feeling I've jumped around everywhere.
Speaker A:I want to leave you with this.
Speaker A:I'm not myself a Buddhist, but I agree with many of their teachings.
Speaker A:I'm not really a Christian, but I agree with many of Jesus teachings and I don't think I'm religious really in any big way of any of them.
Speaker A:But I agree with all of their teachers.
Speaker A:I agree with compassion, I agree with understanding and I agree with just taking a step back, seeing what's arising and choosing to respond in a compassionate and caring way.
Speaker A:And if you're doing that more often today than you were last year, you're on the right direction.
Speaker A:Don't worry about whether you become a Buddhist or whether you're certain religion or anything.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter.
Speaker A:I tell you what, the world needs more now of anything else.
Speaker A:Compassion, understanding, more love.
Speaker A:So I'm going to leave it there for today.
Speaker A:I'm absolutely exhausted and I hopefully I'll get this out in the next couple of hours.
Speaker A:Look, I'm Stephen Webb and if this episode meant something to you, please share it.
Speaker A:If it helps anybody else, please head over to stephenweb.uk the message.
Speaker A:The website is in the show notes and you can join my weekly Calm newsletter.
Speaker A:And I'm just going to leave it there and just thank you and take care of yourself.
Speaker A:Stay curious and I love you.
