Welcome
"The ocean has just one taste, the taste of salt. In the same way, this teaching and training has one taste, the taste of freedom."
— Uposatha Sutta (Udana 5.5)
Greetings of Peace and Care
I'm Aishah Shahidah Simmons, an Insight Meditation Teacher, survivor-healer, and an award-winning Black feminist lesbian writer-filmmaker.
My work bridges ancient wisdom traditions with cultural production, healing justice, and a lifelong commitment to collective liberation.
Grounded in more than two decades of Buddhist practice and more than three decades of survivor-centered cultural work, I offer teachings rooted in compassion, clarity, and the possibility of freedom for all beings.
What I offer spans Dharma teachings, secular mindfulness and MBSR instruction, retreats, class series, writing, and three decades of survivor-centered cultural work rooted in healing, accountability, and liberation.
Wherever you are entering from, you belong here.
We are here because those known and unknown before us did not give up. May this practice honor them. May this practice continue what they began. May all beings be free.
And still, practice does not erase or overshadow the wretched realities of our world. It does not minimize the devastation of the present. It helps us remain in wise relationship with ourselves so we can meet the world without collapsing, numbing, or bypassing.
The Buddha taught that life holds 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. Practice does not spare us from either. It teaches us how to meet both with an open and steady heart.
This is the heart of the Noble Eightfold Path:
Wise View / Wise Intention / Wise Speech / Wise Action / Wise Livelihood / Wise Effort / Wise Mindfulness / Wise Concentration
Not all speed is movement.
–Toni Cade Bambara
Whether through meditation practice, Dharma study, or collective reflection, may we travel this path of awareness, compassion, and embodied freedom together.