itself into view, the inkwell itself, without reference to some hyletic data and categories. It is an issue of undergoing a fundamental experience with the thing itself. It is impossible to undergo such an experience by starting from consciousness. For such an experience, one needs a domain other than consciousness. It is this other domain that was called Da-sein.

Now, what does the word “being” mean when one speaks of Dasein? In contrast with the immanence to consciousness expressed by “being” in consciousness [Bewusst-sein], “being” in Da-sein says being-outside-of. . . . The domain in which everything that can be termed a thing is encounterable as such is a region which grants the possibility for that thing to manifest itself “outside.” The being in Da-sein must preserve an “outside.” This is why the mode of being of Dasein is characterized in Being and Time by ek-stasis. Da-sein thus rigorously means: ek-statically being the there.

Immanence, here, is broken through and through.

Dasein is essentially ek-static. One must understand this ek-static character not only with respect to that which presences, in the sense of what holds its place over against us, but also as ek-stasis in relation to the past, to the present, and to the future.

In the expression Da-sein, “being” thus means the ek-stasis of ek-sistence.

Here it is important to recognize the impetus that Heidegger received from the Husserlian notion of intentionality. After receiving this impetus, Heidegger’s work consisted in the investigation of what is originally contained in intentionality. Now, to think intentionality through to its ground means: to ground it in the ek-stasis of Da-sein. In a word, one needs to recognize that consciousness is grounded in Da-sein.

Today, Heidegger adds, I would formulate this relation differently. I would no longer speak simply of ek-stasis, but of instancy in the clearing [Inständigkeit in der Lichtung]. This expression must in turn be understood as the unity of two senses:

—standing in the three ek-stases.

—guarding and maintaining being through the entirety of Dasein.

Thus, the radically different senses of being in consciousness and Dasein are clarified. From this, one can measure to what extent, in a thought centered on Da-sein, the status of all that it encounters is transformed. From now on, man is ek-statically face to face with what is as such—and no longer with the mediation of a representation (which, by definition, presents a shadow of what is). Heidegger explains by posing the question: when, in my memory, I think of René Char at the Busclats, who or what is thereby given to me?

René Char himself! And not God knows what “image” through which I would be mediately related to him.