Accepting everyone, wherever they are - with Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum

Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum is a Lay Minister with the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness and is based in New Jersey, USA. He is a social worker with a background in addiction and substance abuse and currently works in a hospice. His journey into Buddhism began when a colleague brought up the role of spirituality in mental health treatment and addiction recovery, and it occurred to him he had never included this important dimension in his own work, or indeed in his own life. After searching around and doing a lot of reading, he came across the Bright Dawn Center and it’s unique blend of Zen and Pureland Buddhism

In this interview, Bradley talks about his father’s illness with Alzheimers Disease and eventual death, and how, through the period of his illness, his mother became one of his most important troublesome buddhas. We discuss how working through difficult times such as this is often not pretty, and how making mistakes and messing up is part and parcel of the learning process. He also talks about dealing with difficulty within his marriage and also in his professional life as a social worker.