Aishah Shahidah Simmons (she/her) is a Black feminist lesbian survivor-healer, Buddhist practitioner, Insight meditation teacher, and filmmaker-writer. She has practiced vipassanā since 2002, beginning in the S. N. Goenka tradition, where she trained for 17 years before continuing in the Insight tradition, with more than a year of silent retreat practice in the United States and India. Aishah serves as Resident Teacher at Delaware Valley Insight and as an assistant teacher on residential retreats at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) and Spirit Rock Meditation Center (SR), where she also teaches in online affinity sanghas. She is a trainee in the 2025–2028 SR and IMS Residential Retreat Teacher Training Program, with primary teachers Tuere Sala, DaRa Williams, and Shelly Graf. Aishah is also a certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher and Level One MBSR Teacher. Her award-winning cultural works, including the award-winning film NO! The Rape Documentary, and the Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology love WITH accountability, illuminate truth-telling, healing, and non-carceral responses to harm.
