Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is a Black feminist lesbian Buddhist practitioner, dharma teacher, survivor-healer, and award-winning writer-filmmaker whose life and work have always moved toward liberation. Rooted in the Theravāda Insight tradition, Aishah has practiced vipassanā meditation for more than two decades - including cumulative residential retreats in the United States and India - and brings to her teaching a rare integration of contemplative depth and over three decades of trauma-informed cultural work. She holds space that is race-conscious, LGBTQIA+-affirming, and grounded in the understanding that our identities are not obstacles to practice but portals into it. Aishah serves as Resident Teacher at Delaware Valley Insight and assistant teacher on residential retreats at Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center, where she also teaches in online affinity sanghas. She is a trauma-informed, certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher and a Level One MBSR teacher through Brown University. She is also a co-founder of Black Liberation Dharma, an emergent Black-led Insight meditation sangha. Her cultural works - the groundbreaking documentary NO! The Rape Documentary and the Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology love WITH accountability - have been shared across the U.S. and internationally, and continue to inform her dharma teaching. Her teachings are an offering rooted in compassion, clarity, and the possibility of freedom for all beings..

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