I don’t have any references that I can reach for, and I’m not sure how good the studies actually are, or what they actually say, but my mild belief is that meditation does generally accelerate cognitive development at all stages.
Also, the “unitive” stage isn’t just found in advanced meditators: “enlightenment is an accident, meditation makes you accident prone,” as the saying goes. Not that I want to get into a discussion about classical Buddhist enlightenment. Also, Wilber does say that that meditative attainment and cognitive development can be orthogonal (see “Wilber-Combs lattice” concept).
Finally, “Meditation is just a way of practicing with your mind to experience reality in a specific way,” is a really broad statement. There’s lots of different kinds of meditation. The types of meditation that are probably most relevant here are not “state achievement and stabilization” types, but meditation techniques that make what your mind is already doing more transparent over time.
I think “mind functioning transparency” and associated metacognitive skill increases are a key part of how all this hangs together (cf. the so-called “construct aware” stage, for example). So, the above class of meditation protocols could accelerate the “ego level” line, and use of which would be correlated with but not necessary for hitting the so-called “unitive” stage.
But I do agree that descriptions of the “unitive” stage (by both the experiencers and the researchers) can be colored by all sorts of “spiritual” language and assumptions, and these assumptions have certainly influenced the path and interpretation of this research (and that influence is a mixed bag). But there is methodologically sound signal in there, and I think it’s likely that there’s an underlying structure to the unfolding of the higher (and lower) stages that can be independent of culture, meditation, and Buddhism. In any case, the nature/nurture/culture influence at each stage and the “ontological status” of these stages is still an open question, as are their utility and malleability.
Thoughts:
I don’t have any references that I can reach for, and I’m not sure how good the studies actually are, or what they actually say, but my mild belief is that meditation does generally accelerate cognitive development at all stages.
Also, the “unitive” stage isn’t just found in advanced meditators: “enlightenment is an accident, meditation makes you accident prone,” as the saying goes. Not that I want to get into a discussion about classical Buddhist enlightenment. Also, Wilber does say that that meditative attainment and cognitive development can be orthogonal (see “Wilber-Combs lattice” concept).
Finally, “Meditation is just a way of practicing with your mind to experience reality in a specific way,” is a really broad statement. There’s lots of different kinds of meditation. The types of meditation that are probably most relevant here are not “state achievement and stabilization” types, but meditation techniques that make what your mind is already doing more transparent over time.
I think “mind functioning transparency” and associated metacognitive skill increases are a key part of how all this hangs together (cf. the so-called “construct aware” stage, for example). So, the above class of meditation protocols could accelerate the “ego level” line, and use of which would be correlated with but not necessary for hitting the so-called “unitive” stage.
But I do agree that descriptions of the “unitive” stage (by both the experiencers and the researchers) can be colored by all sorts of “spiritual” language and assumptions, and these assumptions have certainly influenced the path and interpretation of this research (and that influence is a mixed bag). But there is methodologically sound signal in there, and I think it’s likely that there’s an underlying structure to the unfolding of the higher (and lower) stages that can be independent of culture, meditation, and Buddhism. In any case, the nature/nurture/culture influence at each stage and the “ontological status” of these stages is still an open question, as are their utility and malleability.