Dhamma: Ontological Epistemological? Or both?

How not in concordance? The Buddha is saying that, with the realization of the nature of experiential phenomena (appearances), ideas of “existence” / “non-existence” do not pertain. When the mind realizes how it actively translates sensate stimuli into a world of things and events as functions of it’s own desires and aversions, and realizes how to cut-off that process to find release from the sense of suffering that it engenders, the goal is reached. The ontological status (whatever “substance” might or might not be “out there” behind the appearances) of perceptual fabrications is irrelevant to that goal; in terms of the “holy life”, no need to bother with such questions at all.

Btw: “… as it actually is…” is probably translation of “yathā bhūta”, which is a frequent sticking point for English translation, thanks in large part to the built-in linguistic ontological bias. Using a more cumbersome (bad English!) but arguably accurate sense it could be expressed as “in relation to how it has become”, or “how the phenomena [of it] have appeared”. That is, in the radical phenomenology of the Buddha’s perspective, barest (ultimate) experience consists of arising and passing phenomena impinging on the mind.

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There are no negative practical implications, I think.

The primary limitation I see would be that it’s wholly off-target.

There is no such endorsement. I suspect that ontology slipped in the back door of the EBTs as a result of Buddhist one-upmanship in the face of Brahmin ideations (e.g. DN III, and peppered all throughout the rest).

All apparent ontological content in the EBTs seems to me to be the result of prevailing cultural metaphysics impinging on an empirical contemplative practice.


One further comment: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a bit more robust than Wikipedia when it comes to philosophical nuance.

Epistemology

Metaphysics (which includes ontology)

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