Event Recaps: Dialogue Nights

In Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture delivered in 1996 at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, he identified wisdom, courage, and compassion as the core characteristics of the global citizen. With that framework in mind, this May 2026 Dialogue Nights focused on compassion, with the next two scheduled to explore wisdom and courage.

The first Dialogue Nights of 2026, held on January 30th, facilitated a process in which attendees were able to engage in both introspection and goal setting as they participated in what was called the “28-day challenge.”

In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Ikeda Center held a special Dialogue Nights event to honor the hundreds of thousands of innocent people who died and the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) who continue to courageously share their testimonies. 

For the second Dialogue Nights of 2025, the Ikeda Center invited Eliza O’Neil of the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) to introduce her organization’s unique approach to the art and practice of dialogue.

The first Dialogue Nights of 2025, held on January 31, focused on a key aspect of becoming more effective practitioners of dialogue, namely, understanding one’s communication style.

A high-spirited crowd of more than 50 attendees gathered for this August 2024 event, which focused on the ways that all of us can healthily navigate the modern world, full of so many anxiety-inducing factors and forces.

The June 2024 Dialogue Nights responded to the sense of isolation people feel even with the connectivity enabled by technology.

The highest-attended Dialogue Nights since the easing of pandemic restrictions tackled the perennial question of how best to recognize one’s most authentic self and bring it to all one’s interactions.

The first Dialogue Nights of 2024 operated under the assumption that stress is, in the words of event moderator Preandra Noel, a “shared reality” for all of us these days, whether it’s “with work, with relationships,” or just with “the state of the world.”