Mr. Sugihara – Conspiracy of Kindness -MUST WATCH!!!
Mr. Sugihara. A shining example of people who selflessly help other people with no agenda. Thank you sir! Thank you very much for following in your conscience.
Mrs. Sugihara who was afraid of the risks, but supported her husband that their conscience must rule!
This is indeed one of the most touching documentaries I HAVE EVER SEEN. It is about how a person used his connection and office to save the lives of hundreds!! Please take the time to watch this incredible video.
I am not commenting on the war, the political issues or why. I am simply sharing this beautiful story of Mr. Sugihara who was just one person who had compassion of for others. His compassion didn’t stay intellectual or just dinner conversations. But he put it into action. I truly admire this man and he is one of my heroes.
PLEASE HAVE EVERYONE WATCH THIS AND SHARE WITH MANY OTHERS. Let’s spread the message of compassion and care for all living beings on this planet. We all have just one planet to share. Let’s share, let’s get along, let’s make our short lives on this earth harmonious!!
Tsem Tulku
http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/v204964847qcmWnhG.flv
Or view the video on the server at: http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/v204964847qcmWnhG.flv
Thank you Mr Sugihara for enriching so many people’s lives. I wish you great rebirths and powerful attainments.
Sugihara Memorial in Los Angeles.
Sugihara Memorial in Lithuania
Japanese Consulate where Mr. Sugihara saved so many in Lithuania.
Born January 1, 1900, in rural Japan, Chiune Sugihara lived during a period of extraordinary change in his home country. He was a diplomat by profession, and his memory has endured primarily thanks to his actions during a single month of his life in 1940, while serving as Japan’s consul in Kaunas, Lithuania. As World War II escalated in Europe, Sugihara wrote visas, unauthorized by his foreign ministry, permitting Jewish refugees to escape through Japan, even though they did not meet the Japanese government’s requirement for entry, and in some cases, did not even hold passports at all. This decision, which some believe may have cost him his career, ultimately meant a safe escape for thousands of Jews who otherwise would likely have been captured by the Nazis.
Sugihara grew up at a time when Japan was beginning to assert itself as a global power. In his youth, he was exposed to competing cultural influences: his mother came from a long line of samurai, whose traditions stressed loyalty to family and country above all else; yet there was also the lure of more cosmopolitan opportunities, as Japan looked outward, colonizing parts of China and Korea.
An excellent student with an independent streak, Sugihara chose to pursue his own dream of studying English literature, entering the progressive Waseda University in Tokyo instead of following his father’s wish that he become a doctor. He worked odd jobs to pay his way.
Soon after starting university, Sugihara won a scholarship from the Japanese foreign service to study Russian in Harbin, China. Then the capital of Manchuria, Harbin was an international city primarily controlled by Japan. While in Harbin, Sugihara married a Russian woman — whom he later divorced — and converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity.
Manchuria was also the site of Sugihara’s first assignments after finishing his diplomatic training. As deputy consul, he negotiated with the Soviet Union to win control of the Manchurian Railroad at a favorable price for Japan. However, Japan’s cruel treatment of the Chinese in its quest for dominance was more than Sugihara could stomach. He resigned from his post in 1934 and returned to Tokyo to retrain for assignments in Europe. While there, he met and married Yukiko Kikuchi.
As Nazi and Russian troops poured into Poland in the fall of 1939, Sugihara was appointed consul general to Lithuania and moved there with Yukiko and their young children. While his official assignment was to set up a small consulate in the capital city of Kaunas, his primary responsibility was to monitor Soviet and German troop movements near the border with Russia.
During his time in Lithuania, the Sugiharas quickly became acquainted with many of the local residents, including some Jewish families, who shared with him their fears of the growing Nazi menace. These friendships may have formed at least part of what inspired Sugihara to help the refugees when Nazi troops closed in on Lithuania.
Although his own government would not officially accept such a large number of refugees, Sugihara defied protocol and wrote scores of visas every day throughout August 1940, giving thousands of desperate refugees a chance to escape a terrible fate.
Later that fall, under intense pressure from the Soviet regime, which had annexed Lithuania in June, Sugihara was forced to close the consulate. After traveling to Berlin, he was reassigned to several Japanese consulates throughout Nazi-occupied Europe through the end of the war. Sugihara was serving in Bucharest at the time of Germany’s surrender in 1945, and when the Soviets took control of Romania, he and his family were detained there for over a year in an internment camp. They were released in 1946, but detained again for months in Vladivostok on their journey back to Japan.
Upon arriving back in Tokyo in 1947, Sugihara was pressured to resign from the foreign ministry. He believed that the dismissal was a direct result of his decision to issue the unauthorized visas in 1940, though the official reason was downsizing of the diplomatic corps during Japan’s post-war occupation by the United States.
Sugihara spent the latter half of his life in relative obscurity. At times finding it difficult even to provide for his family, he worked odd jobs as a translator and interpreter, and for many years as a manager with an export company in Moscow. Sugihara never spoke of his actions in Lithuania, never actually knowing, in fact, whether the risk had done any good. His humanitarian deed went almost entirely unheralded until the late 1960s, when he was located by a man he had helped to save.
In 1985, Israel officially recognized Sugihara for his actions with an award ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, where he was declared “Righteous Among Nations” and a tree was planted there in his honor. Since his death in 1986, Sugihara has been further memorialized in his hometown of Yaotsu, Japan, as well as Kaunas (now Kovnos), Lithuania.
In 2000, Japan officially celebrated the centenary of Chiune Sugihara’s birth.
Above extracted from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/sugihara/readings/sugihara.html
A young Mr Sugihara with his family emblem (crest) on this attire.
Mr and Mrs Sugihara at the Consulate in Kauna, Lithuania.
Mr Sugihara between 1969-1975
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more video on Mr. Sugihara
http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/v20496483RB9SNQCe.flv
Or view the video on the server at: http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/v20496483RB9SNQCe.flv
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
~Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
(The videos, pictures, and information provided here are in no way for commercial use or infringement purposes. The story of Mr Sugihara has enriched my convictions to be kind to others so much more. I have blogged this to share with friends and to inspire them to be even more kinder people. Thank you.)
Dearest Rinpoche,
thank you for sharing this wonderful life story of Mr. Sugihara.
The act of kindness without expecting anything in return, even losing his job and comfort. Choosing to be selfless, he saved many lives which would otherwise suffer a very cruel fate.
Mr. Sugihara has showed us, what it means by, “taking on the suffering of others happily”, how the world can be a much better place if everyone learn to respect, love, cherish, and choose to do the RIGHT thing for other fellow man.
The world is shared by every sentient beings. We can do our part to make more people understand this by adopting Mr. Sugihara’s attitude. That is, to be kind to anyone and everyone. Not only to those who can / will benefit us. Practise kindness and pray that the kindness given, can be practised by the receiver and so forth. Even a sincere smile can be an act of kindness.
Dear Joe,
Please watch the videos of Mr Sugihara completely if you have not yet. It is very touching. I like it very much. I posted many other things on my blog. Please look through them slowly and learn one by one over time. Absorb and understand. It will benefit you.
Whatever posts on my blog you have read, seen or watched the videos, please leave a comment of what you have learned and how it affected you. I would like to hear from you, your learning from the post and comments.
I wish you well and to complete your spiritual path.
Thank you.
Tsem Tulku
I felt goosebumps reading about how this man risked his family and career for people who were not his blood or kin. It was not even in his job scope to do what he did. Even after he had helped so many he fell into silence and his career was put into icebox. He was one of the top diplomats of his time who outmanoeuvred the Russians during a sales transactions, he had a tremendous future doing if he just did nothing. This man chose to trust his conscience and instincts to help the Jewish families.
We always like to generalize that the Japanese people were totally demons in WW2, well not all are as we can see.
I felt goosebumps reading about how this man risked his family and career for people who were not his blood or kin. It was not even in his job scope to do what he did. Even after he had helped so many he fell into silence and his career was put into icebox. He was one of the top diplomats of his time who outmanoeuvred the Russians during a sales transactions, he had a tremendous future doing if he just did nothing. This man chose to trust his conscience and instincts to help the Jewish families.
We always like to generalize that the Japanese people were totally demons in WW2, well not all are as we can see.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
This is the same wisdom very similar to what Rinpoche has been exhorting to us all the time. That if we do nothing to alter the cause of our life of attachment to worldly things and sense pleasures, the evil of our mind – our delusions and imprints, will triumph and drag us down to unhappy states of rebirth.
During a dark period like in WW2, when evil triumphs for a short period, it is very inspiring and encouraging to witness acts of courage keeping the banner of goodness and holiness alive to overcome evil eventually.Sugihara’s a true hero of humanism and I am so glad Rinpoche shared this here.
What a beacon of light in the great holocaust darkness. People like Sugihara are few in this world, but it the works and their contribution to humanity is so GREAT. Can you imagine what this world would be like if we had more Sugihara? More Mother Theresa, More Mahatma Gandhi!
We are very fortunate to have Tsem Tulku Rinpoche amongst us, a life who has reached out to the entire world, bringing lasting happiness to many yet, looked into every detail of his students welfare…if they have enough food and if the wallets they carry around has money! How can anyone not love Tsem Tulku Rinpoche?!
This is a stunning story of how just one person can make such a profound difference in the lives of others, no matter what it may cost him. I think maybe of us don’t really believe that we can make any real difference – we think, “But I’m just one person so what can I possibly do?” Sugihara was just one person too; he may even have been removed completely or punished for what he was doing, which would have meant that the people helping the Jews would have gone down to a big fat ZERO. But the very fact that he was willing to take this risk and do whatever he could for that moment, that day, led him to literally saving the lives of thousands.
Imagine if he had just sat back and thought “Oh what if I get caught for this, I better not” or “Oh maybe I should think about this a little bit more and do it tomorrow”. Don’t we all think these things every single day? Imagine if he had too, and all those lives would have perished because of a moment of procrastination.
Rinpoche has often said that even existing and doing nothing is collecting negative karma which ties in very strongly to the quote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We may not be the ones authorising the genocide of the Jews, but if it was in our control to do something to help them and we didn’t, then we may as well have been just as responsible as the SS official who authorised the killings and concentration camps.
This is a reminder that we all have the opportunity to do what Sugihara did. It may not be under such extreme circumstances as the holocaust, but every day there is someone out there who is suffering in one way or another, and there is always something we could be doing, no matter how small it may seem to be at the time. So what are we doing?!?!
I have watched the video of Mr. Sugihara’s heroic life. He is aspiration that a hero can arise from pure loving kindness. I the video, Mr. Sugihara went against his jurisdiction and helped many that were in need of his kindness. He basically stuck his head out for strangers of a different race, religion and beliefs. He just knew that these people needed help for their survival. He not just stuck his head out but he also gave all he could physically by hand writing thousands of approvals to allow the refugees to cross the border. If I remember correctly, There was this bit in the story that in order for the refugees to cross the border, they needed 3 approvals from 3 different governments of which one was by Mr. Sugihara. The approvals also had to be given in a sequence where Mr. Sugihara’s approval was second in the sequence. But when some of the refugees came, they did not have the first approval that was needed, but Mr. Sugihara gave them his approval anyways in hope that they will find their way across the border.
From this video, I learned that sometimes, we have to learn to use our hearts over our brains. When we help somebody, we must have hope that they will succeed. Given the case that Mr. Sugihara approved refugees without the first approval that is needed, he just made sure he did his part and hoped that they will be able to obtain the other approvals. He did not once thought that if those refugees he approved whom did not have the necessary approval, his efforts will be in vane. He just kept to the thought that he had to do his part and that was most important. I think that is a showing of giving unconditionally. I highly recommend that everyone watch this video. Very inspirational. Mr. Sugihara became very successful and respected just by being extremely kind.
Wee Liang
My first thought was this wonderful Japanese gentleman has practiced selflessness. From what I hear from the older generation. They say the Japanese were very cruel people. In Malaysia many people were tortured by the Japanese. The hate Malaysian had harboured for the Japanese lasted for a long time. Sugihara treated the refugees as human beings and did not follow what his country tell him to do. But he has followed what his conscience tell him is right even at the extent of disloyalty to his country. And when he was diplomat has help to free many refugees from suffering by taking the risk of approving visas before it has been approved by the first authority. With this he has shown that he is willing to risk himself one person for the sake of so many thousand refugees he can save.