Franco Bertossa

Science and the Wholeness of Life: Aikido for beginners

Current Position: 7th Dan, philosopher and funder of ASIA

Bio: Franco was born in 1954 in Istra, Jugoslavia, from Croatian and Italian parents and lives in Italy since 1963 where he has done Classical Studies. Since 1972 Franco has been focussing on Eastern practices, firstly Judo and Yoga, afterwards Ki-Aikido according to the teachings of Koichi Tohei Sensei, whom he knows personally and Franco practiced many times under his guidance. Franco presently hold the 7th Dan. The turning point of Franco’s inner life took place in 1980 following a sudden event that casted him into the experiential world that he relates to the Zen experience. In the same year he met his definite Yoga master, Gérard Blitz (1912 - 1990), an almost legendary figure, whom Franco followed his master’s death as one of his closest pupils. Since 1979 Franco engaged in traveling and pilgrimages. He travelled and sojourned in Mount Athos, the Greek peninsula that still holds the “Prayer of the Heart”, a traditional Orthodox practice. Thanks to his Slavic mother tongue he became familiar with Serb, Russian, and Bulgarian monks and hermits, as well as Romanian ones. He stayed for long periods in India and on the Himalaya, both Indian and Nepalese. Ramana Maharshi (1979 - 1950) has been an important leading figure in Franco’s spiritual research, and between 1980 and 1984 he made acquaintance with several of his living disciples. In 1994 he founded ASIA, an association with headquarters in Bologna (1000 members) and also in Santiago of Chile. We propose a comparison and a dialogue between the eastern and western philosophical cultures. Members can practice there Yoga, Meditation, and Aikido. In parallel with his interest towards Zen he started the study of existential philosophy since he believes that both stem from the same inner experience. Aiming at this intercultural dialogue our centre invited important scholars from the East: Tupten Jimpa a close collaborator of the Daila Lama, Ohashi Ryosuke and Shizuteru Ueda, Japanese university professors with a long-lasting experience of Zen practice.

Reference: Point zero: a phenomenological inquiry into the seat of consciousness. (2008), “The most stupid battle strategies
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