I'm so glad that you wrote this. I think it finally gelled a framework that I've been struggling with... I'm still hashing this out, but here's an attempt.
That there are three domains of development that occur in parallel during meditation practice:
-- cleaning up "psychological pathologies"
-- conventional "adult development"
-- and insights into emptiness/mind nature
These are so intimate with each other that they interact with the other, but making the distinction leads to greater clairity and a better ability to fine-tune practice/teaching.
>>> Ah! And actually what is interesting is different methods under the big category of "meditation" have different emphasis which relate to these three domains...<<<
What you described is basically getting rid of psycholgical pathologies. "Monkey Mind" is basically the mind distancing itself from an intimate experience of the current moment and this is the early phase of practice. We have to intially lose our enchantment with our own mental chattering. (Doesn't have to go away, just lose interest in it). Then there is more subtle repressions/defense mechanisms/layering over traumas. This clearly comes up in meditation practice and it's clear to me that this has been the intention of Buddhism's pointing toward "outflowings" --- the automatic reactive patterns that are running on autopilot and get triggered whenever we encounter a condition that we can't experience with compassion (i.e. fully experience with sensitivity and equanimity). Basically, it initially seems like our sense of personality is going away because we identify with these habitual psychological patterns, but loosening up the knots results in a better expresion of our true personality and unhindered intelligence. This is more of a relating to things as they are, so an "intelligence" domain. So that's all psychological.
Then there is the stages of ego development, which can be hindered by lots of psychological pathologies, but is a different "context" for holding the sense of identity. I always point to the Cook-Grueter 9 States of ego development as the best resource I've found. As one loses a backlog of pathologies, an adult is likely to movel along the ego development stages, but this is much more highly influenced by a person's culture. It is very difficult to grow beyond certain stages of indentity without having models or being around people who are at these highest stages of development... because each stage of growth loses a kind of easy certainty about who we are and what is meaningful in life. I don't know what to quite call this, but I would say that this is more of a "wisdom" spectrum, but each stage has it's own wisdom and frankly a good hearted person at a lower stages is better for the world than a pathological higher level person. I think it is probably possible to be psychological "clean" but at different stages of ego development, likewise it's possible to be have advanced ego development but lingering psychological pathologies that overwhem the person -- so you can get evil geniuses, so to speak. In general, however, the further the ego development, the less suffering there is from one's own internal material, but unfortunately one's ego identity can clash with the dominant cultural ego identities... which creates a different kind of suffering, a feeling of being on the fringe, so to speak.
Then the third aspect is the domain of mediation, and like it or not, it's all about the emptiness of mind nature. Like I said, the other aspects dominate what happens in meditation, but meditation investigates mind nature in a way that goes beyond these domains. One way I would say it is that there is a kind of "optimizing" that occurs in the previous two domains. Meditation seems to go beyond finding states in which "
one feels whole and complete". Meditation recognizes that too as a "state" of being, which has characteristics and an experiential "tone". And people who go really deep into meditation are curious about that and "what recognizes/experiences this state?" This leads into very very subtle investigatons, really below the domain of words/ego identity and prior to fully development psychological pathologies, and teases apart a very subtle knot of suffering/identity. The same language of psychology and ego development can be used to explain this, but really there aren't words for this and there certainly isn't external authority for this. It's a very personal investigation and oddly enough, everyone's awakening looks slightly different, even though there is a kind of universality that makes it possible for it to be recognized.
The interesting thing about awakening is while the person has to be fairly psychologically clean and ego developed, they don't need to be fully so. So this is why you get all the fucked-up guru/teachers. I think it's a losing battle to argue, "oh you don't know mind nature" because they might, but it is not the point. So it's much more direct to say: hey fucked-up guru/teacher you are psychological regressed and at a low stage of ego development and so you think criminal actions are okay. We're going to treat you like any other criminal, into the courtroom and the prision you go. You see what I mean? This would be a case where the meditation domain is much more advanced than the psycological and ego development and being clear about this makes things much easier to understand.
Okay, that was a quick bunch of typing. I'm definitely interested in feedback.
Adding on... So the one thing that this helps me understand is I find that pursuing meditation to the exclusion or as a work-around for the other psycholgical and ego development is pretty much a failure. If you want psychological clarity, be clear on that and focus on it. (Meditation methods can be used, but focus on psychology aspect of it). If you want ego development, be clear on that (yes, meditation methods can be used for this, but focus on the ego development aspect of it.) If you want awakening, make sure you are getting your psychological and ego development together, because what you will wake up to is the psychological and ego development that still needs to be done!
Anyway, I hope this helps people think about their practice and why there is a lot of value in really taking a whole body/mind/heart approach to practice rather than strugging to complete something according to someone else model/map. Only you know what is giving you trouble in your life. Honor practices that work on the things you need to work on. Don't blindly follow a method or map. Become your own expert of your own condition and follow a path that makes sense to you.