by Mitch Bogen
Special to the Tribune
The Ikeda Center’s June 21, 2024, Dialogue Nights on finding connection in a digital age got off to a deeply analog start. To open, the center’s Preandra Noel invited the nearly 60 attendees to engage in a “quick grounding exercise.” For this activity, they closed their eyes and focused on what “makes them like every other person in the room”—for example, said Noel, “all our hearts are beating, we’re all breathing.”
She also introduced the center’s nine new “dialogue ground rules.” These include such statements as “We will work together to create a safe space where we can be vulnerable and imperfect” and “We will not devalue or ‘put down’ anyone’s experiences or lack of experiences.”
The first small group discussion addressed ways our reliance on technology can contribute to feelings of loneliness. Afterward, one person said that a big problem is that people frequently “feel compelled to use those apps just because [they] don’t want to feel left out.” Another participant said that when he seeks connection offline through “word of mouth,” he often ends up being around “the people I was intentionally looking for.”
The second small group dialogue centered on Daisaku Ikeda’s quote from The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra: “When people have a genuine sense that, no matter how difficult their present circumstances, they are not alone but are vitally connected with others and with the world, they can stand up without fail. This is the power inherent in life” (WLS-4, 105).
The final activity was led by the center’s program intern, Lanre Adeyanju, who is a rising senior at Harvard University. For this activity, participants completed the sentence “In this digital age, I will connect more deeply with others by…” One attendee captured the spirit of the event, saying they will focus on “treasuring the meaningful moments of connection that they do have with others, online or offline.”
To conclude the evening, Adeyanju offered her hope that “as you leave tonight’s Dialogue Night, you continue to just make deeper connections with new people you meet and people who are already in your lives.”
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