The reason is that there is no connection between 'participle' and 'tense', other than the fact that participles are non-tensed verb-forms. Unlike the primary verb-forms, participles do not inflect for tense; when used alone they only figure in tenseless clauses called non-finite clauses which cannot stand alone.
Almost all lexical (i.e. non-auxiliary) verbs have a six-term paradigm, like this one for the verb "take":
Primary Forms
preterite: "took"
present: 3rd sing = "takes"; plain = "take"
Secondary forms
plain form: take
gerund-participle: taking
past participle: taken
Now consider these examples:
(1) I now see the problem.
(2) Having read the paper.
(3) Having read the paper, I now see the problem.
Ex(1) is a finite clause with the primary (tensed) verb-form "see" so it can stand alone as a well-formed sentence. By contrast, ex(2) has a secondary verb-form, the non-tensed present participle "having" and it cannot stand alone as a sentence. Ex(3) brings the two clauses together and the sentence is grammatical because it although it contains the non-tensed present participle "having", it also contains the tensed verb, "see".