Jonas Mago

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Certified UM Trainer/Teacher
Cognitive Neuroscientist and wellbeing aficionado

Over the past seven years, I have been using both contemplative practices and neuroscientific investigations to better understand the human mind and brain in general and states of wellbeing and flourishing in particular. I started practicing meditation in the Shamata-Vipassana traditions with teachings from Dr. Mark Miller and John Yates (Culadassa). After a couple years of practice I complemented these teachings with reflections on emptiness and dependent origination as taught by Rob Burbea and meditations on non duality guided and instructed by Michael Taft.

Alongside my contemplative journey, I have studied philosophy and cognitive neuroscience, to better understand the mechanics underlying consciousness and thus any state of flourishing and wellbeing. This journey has led me to McGill University where I am currently undergoing my doctoral studies. For this work, I am using mobile neuroimaging to study the brains of some of the worlds most expert meditators, prayer practitioners, and during psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. The aim of this work is to build better models of the brain that can help to refine the way we teach, practice, and life a contemplative life.

 

The Unified Mindfulness (UM) approach has allowed me to merge my contemplative practice with my scientific curiosity. UM’s precise and easy to understand language makes it possible to translate my scientific research into practical meditation instructions, allowing to gain an experiential understanding of and mastery over one’s own mind.

Links