"Reading this magic book is like drinking from a fresh wellspring deep in the mountains;
it slowly returns one to sanity."
​- David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous

Intimate and evocative, The Abundance of Less profiles ten men and women who have left mainstream life in urban Japan to live surrounded by the luxuries of nature, art, friends, delicious food, and an abundance of time.

Raised in the tumult of Japan’s industrial powerhouse, these ordinary yet exceptional people have all made the transition to sustainable, fulfilling lives. They are today artists, philosophers and farmers who reside deep in the mountains of rural Japan. Their lives are simple, yet because they have prioritized time for contemplation, making art and contributing to their communities, they have grown rich in a very different way.
Drawing on traditional Eastern spiritual wisdom and culture, these individuals show us ways to hold our minds so that a path toward inner abundance becomes possible. They are, in a sense, pioneers: leaving behind the consumerism, busyness and over-dependence on technology that so many people suffer from, they are forging a new style of modernity.
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Meet some of the people featured in The Abundance of Less...

“I learned to adjust my plans to what was actually possible.”

Mr. Nakamura is a man who does almost everything by hand, and yet he seems to have so much time. As he says, "If you have time...

"It’s best to do it soon"

During the years of writing this book, I’ve often found myself on a crowded train in Tokyo or Osaka, and I’ll look at all the businessmen, their suits and ties perfect, but exhaustion hanging over their faces, and I wonder....

“You can’t ever buy back that time."

Atsuko looked at me and said, "I knew from when I was eleven or twelve years old that I didn’t want to live that kind of life..."

"A big sigh of relief"

"I was born after the war. When I was little I saw people planting rice barefoot, but by the time we went to India, Japan was all about high-speed growth, especially of the economy, what they called ‘modernization,’”

"We are in an overheated world - physically and spiritually. It is extremely powerful to read of people who have managed to escape that world, not by traveling to outer space but by heading toward reality. This book is subversive in the best possible way.”
​
-Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

Author Andy Couturier talks about The Abundance of Less (formerly called A Different Kind of Luxury) on San Francisco's KRON:
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