EREIGNIS

For Heidegger, “essence” (Wesen) must Not be understood in the traditional, metaphysical sense of a timeless essentia, i.e., quidditas, but in the verbal sense of the old Germanic word wesan (to dwell), as the temporal way of unfolding, of a coming to presence, and as an enduring of the being of something. The essential ground of human existing is not a first cause, nor any other cause, but rather the revealing-concealing mystery of being, which grants the human being his Da-sein. See M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. R. Manheim (New York: Doubleday, 1961), p. 59.