On Sept. 25, Buddhist author, speaker, and educator Chenxing Han will give the University of Lynchburg’s 2025 Zaidee Creel Memorial Lecture. The title of her lecture is “The Karma of Friendship: A Buddhist Approach to Writing & Spiritual Care.”
The lecture will take place in Snidow Chapel at 7 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
Han is the author of two books, “Be the Refuge” and “one long listening.”
“Be the Refuge” spotlights the lives and experiences of American Buddhists through in-depth interviews.
“one long listening” is Han’s memoir. Her author page describes it as “a pilgrimage through the wilds of grief and laughter, pain and impermanence, reconnecting us to both the heartache and inexplicable brightness of being human.”
Han is also a co-teacher of the collaborative learning project “Listening to the Buddhists in Our Backyard” at Phillips Academy Andover and a co-organizer of another, “May We Gather: A National Buddhist Memorial for Asian American Ancestors.”
Jer Bryant, the University of Lynchburg’s associate chaplain, is organizing the event.
“The Spiritual Life Center is excited and deeply grateful for Chenxing Han’s upcoming lecture,” Bryant said. “Han’s compassion and creative genius are brilliantly displayed in her memoir …
“The words within capture her Buddhist practice, one that involves not looking away from suffering, whether that suffering is rooted in one’s self or in another, which are ultimately the same.
“What a gift it will be for our students to hear how Han’s spirituality pulses through her life, her work, and her writing.”
Han will give a lecture and attend a meeting with the Spiritual Life Center’s student group, the Buddhist Community.
This visit is made possible by the Snidow endowment and the Zaidee Creel Williams endowment.
For more information on this event, please contact Jer Bryant at [email protected].
The Spiritual Life Center sponsors the Clifton L. Snidow Lecture. For more information, contact the Spiritual Life Center at [email protected].
Zaidee Creel Williams, a member of the Class of 1924, was a lifelong educator. Following her death in 1987, her nephew, Austin B. Creel, and other family members decided to honor her memory by endowing a lectureship in the area of religious studies. Since the inaugural lecture in 1989, the Zaidee Creel Williams Lectureship has enabled the Department of Religious Studies to bring exciting, dynamic scholars in the field of religious studies to the University, enriching the intellectual life not only of the campus but the community at large.
