Dialogue Nites Lite Focuses on What Brings Hope and Joy

The Center’s Dialogue Nights Lite series was launched in 2024 as a complement to the long-running Dialogue Nights series. Where the original Dialogue Nights provides what the Center’s Preandra Noel called a “brave and safe place” where young adults can engage in structured dialogue on topics and challenges they are “grappling with,” the “Lite” version is less topical and more “focused on the practice of dialogue” itself. 

Welcoming the nearly 50 Boston-area university students and young professionals in attendance, Preandra explained that the Center was founded by the late Buddhist thinker and peacebuilder Daisaku Ikeda, who, she said, “was deeply committed to promoting peace through dialogue.” In that spirit, she added, “our mission here is to build cultures of peace through learning and dialogue informed by Buddhist humanism.” Then, to set the stage for the evening’s dialogue activities, Preandra first asked everyone to think of something that may have been distracting them lately – for example, maybe a bill you need to pay or a stressful interaction with someone – and move it to an imaginary “parking lot” so everyone can be fully present in the moment. And finally, she introduced the Center’s Dialogue commitments and ground rules, which guide all Dialogue Nights events. The former include commitments such as making the effort to listen to and learn from each other and the latter include actions such as embracing new perspectives with the openness that we may not always be right.

Each Dialogue Nights Lite (DN Lite) is moderated by two-person teams of members of the Center’s Youth Committee. This event’s moderators both were former Summer Program Interns at the Ikeda Center. Sophia Robertson interned in 2025 and is a current junior at Harvard College studying political science and psychology. She was joined by Becca Faber, who interned in 2026 and is also a current junior at Harvard studying political science. “We chose to focus today’s conversations,” said Sophia, “around hope and optimism. These days, I think it can feel easy, almost natural, to build dialogue around shared struggles – and while that’s immensely valuable, it’s sometimes even more valuable to think and share about what brings us together through hope.” 

DN Lite discussions employ a paired dialogue activity called “speed connecting,” which, said Becca, “involves multiple rounds of 10-minute paired dialogues that revolve around a get-to-know-you question.” The guiding spirit for tonight’s dialogues, said Sophia, is Daisaku Ikeda’s conviction that “the foundation of dialogue [is] having faith in human beings or, in other words, believing in another person’s inherent goodness.” For each of the four speed connecting rounds, participants changed partners and were encouraged to focus on employing one of the dialogue commitments. And for inspiration, everyone reflected on Daisaku Ikeda’s insight that “the true value of dialogue is not to be found solely in the results it produces but also in the process of dialogue itself, as two human spirits engage with and elevate each other to a higher realm.”

The four questions for paired discussion were:

1. What is something you heard recently that gave you hope?
2. Who is someone in your life who instantly makes you feel optimistic or joyful?
3. What song instantly puts you in a good mood?
4. What activity makes you feel more calm when you’re stressed?

Following the speed connecting rounds, Becca introduced a number of questions for participants to personally reflect on and for participants to share during a brief “open mic” session, along with reflections that arose from the speed connecting questions. The questions were: From tonight’s conversations, what was the most fascinating thing that you’ve heard or told about yourself that you can’t believe? Something you shared that made you think “I just met you and I can’t believe how comfortable I am sharing this.” What was the most surprising thing that you shared with your dialogue partner? How did it go? Were there any other unexpected routes in tonight’s dialogue, or any other reflections from tonight? During open mic, three participants shared messages of hope.

• One said, simply, “it’s a small world out here. I met a kindred soul here.”
• Next, when a participant was discussing her best friend as someone who always makes her feel joyful, she shared, “I realized I’m so grateful to have such a friend who makes every day special and to have this opportunity to make more friends here.”
• Responding to the first speed connecting question of something said recently that gave you hope, one participant recalled a conversation he recently had with his mother. She told him how, in her community of “underserved” native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, many of her friends had been struggling with illness and other challenges. Then she advised him, that no matter what happens, to “always keep my head in the game. Don’t give in to the negativity. Stay focused on what’s ahead of me rather than what’s behind. And to just keep an optimistic perspective because we’re the ones who have the power to impact our environments rather than letting our environments decide how we get to feel.”

To wrap up the evening, Preandra returned to lead a takeaway activity inspired by this quote from Daisaku Ikeda: “It is in the ocean of dialogue that a person can become truly human. Dialogue is an epic challenge which first requires you to change yourself, rather than trying to change others.” With that sentiment in mind, staff handed out paper cutouts of fish on which each participant could write a core takeaway idea from the evening using this prompt: Based on your experience tonight, what is a dialogue skill you are strengthening/working on to feel more connected to the world around you? Here are some of the thoughtful and inspiring pledges that were shared.

• Going out of my comfort zone (or expanding my zone of comfort) by making effort to meet new friends and have meaningful conversations with them.
• Lead with curiosity and give the inner anxiety a break – and focus fully on the person in front of me!
• I am working on caring more about what the other person cares about, and not treat their problems and concerns as merely other people’s personal problems that I don’t need to be concerned about.
• Sitting/sticking with initial discomfort of dialogue. Understanding that some things take time and/or space to cleanup and conclusions don’t need to be rushed to.
• I am working on the skill of bringing out what people value and why they value them. I want to learn how people are more the same than different. 

This DN Lite concluded with a fun twist on our usual programming: a costume contest! Since the event took place the day before Halloween, participants were invited to show up in costume. Three lucky winners took home a Dialogue Nights beanie and a bag of candy!