 Why does Zen insist on this? Zen explains that both “there is” and “there is not” (or more generally “being” and “non-being”) are intellectually framed from within the everyday standpoint by accepting the oppositional ontology where the meaning of “is” is predicated on the meaning of “is not,” and vice versa. Therefore, Zen maintains that to understand “no-thought” or “no-image” we need an experiential dimension that goes beyond the oppositional thinking of the everyday standpoint. 