Pure TokyoScope Podcast 159: Eight Million Ways to Happiness with Hiroko Yoda!
Patrick Macias and Matt Alt bring you pop culture direct from Japan!
FULL EPISODE! This time on the PURE TOKYOSCOPE Podcast, authors Matt Alt (Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World) and Patrick Macias (Mondo Tokyo: Dispatches from a Secret Japan) are joined by 1st time guest HIROKO YODA, author of the new book Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom from the Heart of Japan! Dont delay! Buy one today!.
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SHOW NOTES
Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom from the Heart of Japan by Hiroko Yoda
A Japanese cultural historian shares a path to joyful living drawn from her nation’s unique approach to spirituality and nature, offering a “fascinating” (Wintering author Katherine May) blend of memoir, cultural reporting, and practical guidance for anyone struggling to find balance in our turbulent modern world.
Everyone’s in the pursuit of happiness, but few know how to attain it. Millions around the world have turned to Japan for advice on finding their Ikigai, or summoning The Courage to Be Disliked. Japan’s spiritual traditions hide in plain sight, forming the basis of so much of what we love about the country’s culture. Without Japan’s spiritual sustenance, Jiro wouldn’t dream of sushi; Hayao Miyazaki’s films wouldn’t spirit us away; and Marie Kondo wouldn’t spark joy.
In her book Eight Million Ways to Happiness, Hiroko Yoda offers the culmination of her decade-long odyssey into the spiritual heart of her homeland. Readers follow Hiroko as she trains as a Shinto shrine-dancer, partakes in Buddhist funeral rituals, ascends holy mountains with Shugendo ascetics, and meets one of Japan’s last living itako, a traditional mystic. Her stories—personal, cultural, and historical—offer life lessons for readers of any background.
Hiroko awakens readers to the idea of a traditional spiritual flexibility that seamlessly coexists with the modern secular world, fortifying us through life’s inevitable ups and downs. We are all subject to forces beyond our control, but we are also part of a bigger natural system that can strengthen us—if we learn how to reconnect with it.
Lost City Books presents Eight Million Ways to Happiness by Hiroko Yoda - Monday, January 19, 2026 at Lost City Books, Washington, DC
Hiroko Yoda links
Substack
Instagram: @hi_yoda_1
blue-sky: @hirokoyoda.bsky.social
Hiroko Yoda website: https://www.hirokoyoda.com/
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