Realization of Emptiness Vs. Being Skillful with People
Whatever experiences one hasn't had in life, realization of empty nature of phenomena does not change that. Realizing empty nature of phenomena does not and can not replace experiences in life, nor is it meant to do so. How skillful, smart and sensitive one is towards people and their matters is based on one's previous interactions with people, rather than insights or attainments through meditation. We won't become a psychologically skillful human beings without other people and the challenges they bring to us. This is why, mahasiddhas, myself included, can at times be clumsy and limited in human interactions.
Q: What about relative bodhicitta? How does that come into play? I would have thought that mahasiddhahood would entail a certain baseline level of kindness and compassion.
A: Ethics is like having and using a compass and compassion towards others (relative bodhicitta) is like keeping warm along the way. Buddhanature is pure and perfect in terms of ethics and naturally kind and compassionate. Because of this a mahasiddha cannot create harmful schemes or say hurtful things *with the intention to hurt others*. But if one is a stranger to the interaction between other people, even if you are a kind-hearted mahasiddha with perfect knowledge about wisdom and compassion, unavoidably one's actions will be foolish or clumsy, or even insulting... but this is due to being foreign to customs and not due to samsaric self-centeredness. Mahasiddhas have no intention to hurt others but nevertheless one can say idiotic things out of not knowing how to interact with others, or due to any kind of views about the world and its fields of special knowledge.
KR, 8.3.2022
