About
Chenxing Han is an author and speaker in the Insight Meditation tradition. She holds an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Graduate Theological Union and a certificate in Buddhist chaplaincy from the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. Han has written two memoirs: Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists (2021) and one long listening: a memoir of grief, friendship, and spiritual care (2023). She is a co-founder of Listening to the Buddhists in Our Backyard, May We Gather: A National Buddhist Memorial for Asian American Ancestors, and Roots and Refuge: An Asian American Buddhist Writing Retreat. Han teaches at the Insight Meditation Center and Insight Retreat Center.
Teaching focus
Han's core teaching draws on mindfulness of breathing, open awareness, noting practice. The frame is the insight tradition transmitted through teachers like Mahasi Sayadaw and U Ba Khin into the West, but the language stays plain. Han doesn't lecture from height. The talks tend to think alongside whatever's actually present in the room. Recurring themes include sati, sampajanna, and the three characteristics. None of those get presented as abstract ideas. They're worked into the body, into ethics, into how a practitioner shows up in family life or at work, so that the dharma stops feeling like a separate compartment. There's a steady invitation in the talks to keep practice human-sized. Sit when you can, return when you've drifted, and trust that small consistent attention does more over the years than dramatic breakthroughs. Format-wise, Han teaches in in-person, retreat, online, and the tone moves easily between guided sittings, dharma talks, and Q&A. Questions tend to get answered the way they were asked, without being reframed into something cleaner. That alone tells you a lot about how the room feels.
Background
Chenxing Han is an author and speaker in the Insight Meditation tradition. She holds an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Graduate Theological Union and a certificate in Buddhist chaplaincy from the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. Han has written two memoirs: Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists (2021) and one long listening: a memoir of grief, friendship, and spiritual care (2023). She is a co-founder of Listening to the Buddhists in Our Backyard, May We Gather: A National Buddhist Memorial for Asian American Ancestors, and Roots and Refuge: An Asian American Buddhist Writing Retreat. Han teaches at the Insight Meditation Center and Insight Retreat Center. Chenxing Han (she/her) is the author of Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists (2021); one long listening: a memoir of grief, friendship, and spiritual care (2023); and numerous articles and book chapters for both academic and mainstream audiences. A frequent speaker and workshop leader at schools, universities, and Buddhist communities across the nation, she has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, Hemera Foundation, the Lenz Foundation, and the University of Michigan. Chenxing holds a BA from Stanford University, an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Graduate Theological Union, a certificate in Buddhist chaplaincy from the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is a founder of Listening to the Buddhists in Our Backyard, May We Gather: A National Buddhist Memorial for Asian American Ancestors; and Roots and Refuge: An Asian American Buddhist Writing Retreat. Han teaches across several communities, including Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center. That work sits within the insight tradition transmitted through teachers like Mahasi Sayadaw and U Ba Khin into the West, and the recurring concerns of Han's teaching, ethical foundation, steady attention, and the slow softening of habitual reactivity, echo the older texts without sounding distant from a 21st-century practitioner's life. What stands out across Han's talks isn't a single technique but a steadying tone. Practice is treated as something built slowly, in ordinary life, with care. There's room for the difficulties practitioners actually bring into the room, grief, restlessness, the body's complaints, family obligations, and the encouragement is consistent without being pushy.
Lineage
Han teaches within the insight tradition transmitted through teachers like Mahasi Sayadaw and U Ba Khin into the West. Current affiliations include Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center. The lineage shows up less in titles than in the way Han talks about practice, with steady reference to the older Buddhist vocabulary while keeping the door open for people who've never read a sutra. Whether that framing lands as monastic or lay depends on the specific talk, but the consistent thread is care for the form without letting the form become the point.
What to expect
Sitting with Han, you can expect grounded instruction in mindfulness of breathing, with space to ask questions and bring whatever's actually showing up in your practice. On retreat the structure follows a classical rhythm of sittings, walking practice, and dharma talks, with silence held between sessions. Online sessions tend to keep the same shape, shorter sits, a talk, and time for Q&A, in a format that's accessible from home. The teaching voice is steady. Han won't push you past your edge, and there's a clear preference for slow, sustainable practice over breakthrough chasing. Bring a notebook if you like, or don't. Either way, you'll be met where you are.
