Starting anew while standing in the stinking crap heap of one’s old mess is the only place anyone can ever start anew. There is no other place. That is essential to the dynamic of Vajrayana. You—just as you are—is the ideal and only starting point.
The scope of intellect is rather narrow. Although it can be used to point beyond itself, in terms of the teachings, it has more in common with a spanner or a monkey wrench than with our innate capacity of clarity. Once you get a handle on this idea, you’ll be able to recognise when intellect is out of it’s depth. At that point you’ll be able to make a springboard out of the stuff of intellect and dive off into the sky of experience.
The power of Tantra doesn’t go with wanting to be calm. It goes with being willing to ride the voltage of pure panic! In Tantra, we have some knowledge of the calm of ‘non-arising’ – the state without definitions; the state of emptiness. So; when we recognise this state of emptiness, as the basis of what we are, we can then turn round and face phenomena with fierce compassion! The spirit of heroism embraces the tumultuous flood of existence, in which: war and peace; calm and panic alternate – but, have the same intrinsic taste. Once you accept that there’s no way you can interpret Tantra according to intellectual criteria; you’re left with simple non-conceptuality. And that; is absolute directness and blunt immediacy. You’re simply left suspended; left high and dry. There is nowhere to run; nowhere to hide. You’re left sitting with that in the moment. There is nothing to do with it apart from experiencing it. You can accept it or attempt to reject it; but it will always be there grinning at you.
The nature of existence continually helps and hinders the search for definition in a completely impartial manner. The problem is the desire to be in charge of the defining process. This is a highly complicated procedure – but it is so customary, that it is hardly noticed. Rather than allowing continual re-definition (and occasionally lack of definition), the prevalent impetus is to attempt domination of the mutually defining and un-defining process which constitutes the flux of reality.