are mistakes truly mistakes?

 During the Lotus Sutra talks on Sunday, Fashi was describing the ways to do repentance in the style of the Lotus Sutra itself. One of the things I learned from that talk is that a person does not need to necessarily think of anything or try to search for a source of harm, to repent. It seems to be a more simpler process of 'repenting' for the attachment one has to thoughts. After all, it's this basic attachment to the stories in one's mind that give rise to a lot (if not all) the problems that happen in daily life, including vexations and anxieties. And I think this is almost diametrically opposite to the cultural portrayal of repentance in the West, which often conjures up images of stern teachers (usually wielding sticks), who yell at people to 'repent!'. The kind of repentance that Fashi was describing is more like a mental cleansing or a reset, where I make a sincere effort to banish this tendency to cling to thoughts and get entangled in them in different ways, especially through the poisons of desire and anger.
    I had a different question which gave rise to this entry, and that is: when we repent of our mistakes, are they really 'mistakes' after all, or are they perhaps the reflection of a deeper longing or unmet need?  I am reminded of Freud here, because Freud was under the impression that there are no 'mistakes' or 'accidents' after all. When for instance  a person makes a slip of the tongue, they are really reflecting some deeper desire that is often unacknowledged. Are these desires said to be bad? My fear is that if a person simply clears those desires from mind, they only end up being repressed again or ignored, only to come up in a different form. So what would repentance really mean if those desires aren't really faced and accepted for what they are?
    From what little I understand from Buddhist teachings, it's problematic if people simply bottle up their longings under the belief  that longings are a source of painful rebirth. Rather, the longing has to be fully faced and owned before a person can resolve its energy or understand where that energy arises and how it can be resolved. Unless a person can fully face and accept the dreams one has, it will be hard to truly understand those dreams enough to harness them toward a beneficial vision of life. Instead of labelling an emotion as bad or unnecessary, I may need time to be with the emotion for a while before I know how to channel it.
    None of this goes against what Fashi is saying, because she is addressing the tendency for thoughts to become attached to a sense of self. By letting go of the strong sense of  self, I don't need to disown feelings. Instead, there is an effort not to over-identify with it, which is what repentance represents (the putting down of the sense of self).