A woman with dreadlocked hair, wearing red lipstick and a hemp nose piercing, sits with her hand resting on her chin, wearing multiple bracelets and a large amber ring, in front of a brick wall.

My History

I offer this work in gratitude to all who made it possible.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is a Black feminist lesbian dharma teacher, survivor-healer, and award-winning writer-filmmaker whose life and work have always moved toward liberation, first through film and cultural production, and now through the ancient wisdom of contemplative practice.

Formed by more than three decades of survivor-centered cultural work and more than two decades of Buddhist practice and vipassanā meditation, Aishah brings to her teaching a rare depth, the practitioner who has sat in silence for a cumulative year of residential retreats, and who has also stood in the streets, broken silences, and demanded accountability. Her teachings are rooted in the Theravāda Insight tradition and shaped by Buddhist, Black feminist, queer, and survivor lineages. She holds space that is race-conscious, LGBTQIA+-affirming, and trauma-informed, grounded in the understanding that our apparent identities are not obstacles to practice but portals into it.

A woman with glasses and earrings smiling in a classroom. Behind her, a presentation screen displays 'Distinguished Daughter of Connecticut' and a date of October 28, 2022, with a few people seated in the background.

Aishah serves as a resident teacher at Delaware Valley Insight and is currently enrolled in the 2025-2028 Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Insight Meditation Society Residential Retreat Teacher Training Program. She is a certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher and a qualified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher through Brown University.

Her groundbreaking documentary NO! The Rape Documentary cinematically broke the silence on sexual violence in Black communities. Funded by the Ford Foundation, subtitled in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German, and screened extensively across five continents, NO! exemplifies her commitment to work that is survivor-centered and accessible to all. Her Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology love WITH accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse brings together diasporic Black child sexual abuse survivors and advocates who, through first person transformative storytelling, explore child sexual abuse within Black families and communities.

The Aishah Shahidah Simmons Papers are held at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, within the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and the Archive of Documentary Arts.

Full Bio
Curriculum Vitae

This work has brought me into many rooms across the United States and internationally. To the right is a small selection of organizations and institutions where I have taught, collaborated, or partnered, past and present.

Much of this work has been in service of addressing sexual violence, a foundation that continues to inform and deepen my Dharma and mindfulness teaching within a broader cultural commitment to cultural and justice work spanning more than three decades.

    • Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Guest Faculty

    • Delaware Valley Insight, Resident Teacher

    • Elm Community Insight, Visiting Teacher

    • Insight Meditation Center of Western Massachusetts, Teacher

    • Insight Meditation Society, Assistant Teacher

    • Sounds True, Guest Teacher

    • Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Assistant Teacher

    • True North Insight, Guest Teacher

    • Weekly Dharma Gathering, Guest Teacher

    • Collegeville Institute - Resident Scholar

    • Colorado College - Course Associate, Feminist & Gender Studies

    • Metropolitan State University of Denver - Rachel B. Noel Distinguished Visiting Professorship

    • Morgan State University - Visiting Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, Black Queer Everything program and Center for Religion Cities

    • National Women's Studies Association - Presidential Plenary Panelist

    • Scripps College - Erma O'Brien Distinguished Visiting Professorship, Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies

    • Spelman College - Artist-in Residence, Women’s Research and Resource Center, and Digital Moving Image Salon

    • Temple University - Contingent Faculty, Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

    • University of Chicago - Visiting Lecturer, Department of Cinema and Media Studies

    • University of Pennsylvania - Visiting Scholar, Annenberg School for Communication and School of Social Policy, and Practice, and Affiliate Scholar, Ortner Center on Violence and Abuse

    • Williams College - Sterling Brown Visiting Professor of Africana Studies

    • American Friends Service Committee’s Community Relations Division, Europe Program, Third World Coalition, Nationwide Women’s Program, and Southern Africa Program

    • Amnesty International, French Section (Group du 6 novembre)

    • Black Women’s Blueprint

    • Casa Internazionale delle Donne

    • Highlander: The Movement School

    • International Women’s Summit

    • Just Beginnings Collaborative

    • Institute on Domestic Violence in the African-American Community

    • me too. International

    • National LGBTQ Task Force, Creating Change Conference 

    • New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault

    • National Sexual Assault Conference

    • North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault

    • Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence

    • Open Society Institute’s Roma Participation Program

    • RALIANCE / National Sexual Violence Resource Center

    • Ufficio Politiche di Genere Della Citta di Torino