I'm not sure what is meant by "symbolic" here, because though he explains the states quite a bit, he doesn't actually say what "symbol" means

OK. As promised, here I am.

Symbol, in the context of many meditation traditions, is just a thing in the middle —between your mind and 'reality'— that sort of translates stuff so you know it better. One example of symbolic cognition we do all the time is, we ask 'what is that?' and then naturally we take images from our past to match it with what we have known. That recognition is an example of the symbolic process: Reality-X is there (the unknown thing itself), you combine it with imagery/thoughts from the past that are similar [symbols—'what is that? it reminds me of that artist's sculpture.'], and this produces recognition in your mind ('it's a sculpture!).

Meditators like to bypass that symbolic process by slowly noticing this process more and more, like you're a spectator at a sports game watching 'symbol' play against 'reality.' Over time, the spectating itself inevitably makes you realize that you're not playing the game that is being watched (not just as an intellectual realization, but when it happens deeply it's life-altering). Once the 'spectating' realizes that it is in some sense separate from the symbols, then there is a directness available there —the symbols were like our translators— so, with proper guidance, we then have the chance to know things far more quickly for ourselves but possibly with more shocks since things are not digested, so it takes a bit of training— for example, most people don't realize that their perceptual equipment doesn't speak English, or anything...like, at all. Imagine it's basically an alien (in terms of verbal communication). That is how odd some people find it: the lack of verbiage yet the presence of clear cross-communication is really odd sometimes!

Cheers and happy Saturday to you.

-CV