Heidegger goes on to show, through Parmenides' own statements, that Being, thus understood as presence, is not exclusive of absence but rather encompasses absence and incorporates it within itself. For something can be absent only within the expanse of presence that lets it be at all. "This," exclaims Heidegger, "is what Parmenides is trying to say!" Being is understood as the originary unifying presence, a unifying gathering that occurs prior to all differentiated beings and non-beings, a gathering that is apprehending, noein, conceived as a "waiting against" or "waiting toward" presence (this "waiting against" expressing the literal sense of the German for presence or the present: Gegen‑wart).

¶ 1:25 AM