I am not sure if it is true to say that “the suttas don’t posit any onthology”. I do think it is true, however, that they do not present us with a metaphysics, in the sense of a speculative philosophy. If the suttas do have an ontological position, it would be one based on experience.
It seems to me that doctrinal statements such as “all phenomena are impermanent” (sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā) and “all principles are nonself” (sabbe dhammā anattā) are ontological in nature. In fact, the Buddhist academic Peter Harvey seems to argue that dependent origination is a Buddhist ontology.
My question to Bhante @Sujato was rhetorical.
The Buddha’s doctrine is a guide to spiritual development - a strategy, if you like - but this only works if it is based on a deeper truth. In other words, you cannot guide people to true insight into the nature of the mind, at least not at its deepest level, unless this guidance is based on the way the mind actually functions and manifests.
What we need to be cautious with, however, is to over-determine how such insights are supposed to appear to the individual. We should focus on general principles, as the Buddha does, not on the specific contents of each moment of insight. The more specifically you describe the nature of insight, the more likely it is that an individual meditator will “manufacture” a similar experience, which is then misinterpreted as the described state. I have seen this a number of times, with people who thought or were told, based on very specific experiences, that they had reached certain stages of awakening, only to realise later on that they had reached no such thing.
Of course, you can misinterpret your experiences regardless, but it seems more rampant when you are given a map which is extremely detailed and specific.
It’s endogenous. The Buddha claimed to speak only from personal experience.
Sure. Yet it may also be true that there is no self. I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. In other words, we would see the deeper truth in slightly different ways. This is precisely why it is often counterproductive to determine too precisely the nature of insight.