Weekend Story: Kindness
The Kami-Shirataki station, Hokkaido, Japan When we view all living beings as an extension of ourselves, acts of kindness arise naturally, often in quiet, unpublicized ways. One remarkable example is from Kami-Shirataki Station in rural Hokkaido, Japan. By 2013, it had just one regular passenger, a high school girl who relied on it to commute to her classes. The railway company, JR Hokkaido, could have closed the station as planned, but instead it kept it open for three more years, running trains solely according to her school schedule. When she graduated in March 2016, the station was finally closed. This was not the kindness of an individual, but what we might call institutional kindness, a rare instance where an organization, often perceived as faceless and governed by profit or efficiency, chose empathy over economics. It quietly upheld the dignity and needs of a single life. This is the essence of kindness, not driven by recognition or gain, but flowing naturally from the awa...