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.

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 taken me into many rooms. A selection of organizations where I have taught or partnered, past and present.

...and many others across more than three decades of cultural and justice work.

    • Barre Center for Buddhist Studies

    • Delaware Valley Insight

    • Elm Community Insight

    • Insight Meditation Center of Western Massachusetts

    • Insight Meditation Society

    • Sounds True

    • Spirit Rock Meditation Center

    • True North Insight

    • Weekly Dharma Gathering

    • Morgan State University, Black Queer Everything… program

    • National Women's Studies Association

    • Scripps College, Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies

    • Spelman College, Women’s Research and Resource Center, Digital Moving Image Salon

    • Temple University, Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

    • University of Chicago, Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture (2009)

    • University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication and School of Social Policy and Practice

    • Williams College, Africana Studies

    and the Center for Religion Cities

    • Morgan State University, Black Queer Everything program and the Center for Religion Cities

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

    • Black Women’s Blueprint

    • Highlander: The Movement School

    • International Women’s Summit

    • 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

    • RALIANCE / National Sexual Violence Resource Center

    • Ufficio Politiche di Genere Della Citta di Torino