Making Assumptions

 After our Thursday meditation tonight, I started to reflect a bit on the meaning of repentance, and how it can really be incorporated into a person's life. I still haven't quite understood it, but I think it has something to do with never assume, and never stick to the previous thought. Perhaps these two points are interconnected, but maybe I can elaborate a bit.
    "Never assume" is actually an extremely difficult practice. Any time I even make an utterance, there is an assumed audience. It may not be a clear audience, but nonetheless there is an assumed person to whom you are communicating. And that is already a risky assumption. One can never know whether the audience will get your message, how it will be received, or how deeply it will be understood. And as long as I am stuck to my assumptions, reality will likely hit me like a bag of bricks; we all should know somehow that reality never quite meets assumptions. The reason for this is that assumptions can easily lead to a stubborn refusal to entertain other possibilities that are undreamt of in the assumption. Another reason is that underneath assumptions there are often invisible polarities. If I believe that Idea A is the best idea, and don't bother to step out to see other ideas, then Idea B and C get overshadowed. In addition, it's often the case that fruitful collaboration across ideas might get lost in the shuffle.
    "Never sick to the previous thought" sort of ties in with "never assume", because it relates to how I get caught up in an idea I like the most, to the point where I settle into it. That can be quite dangerous, because when I truly get comfortable in a particular groove, an accompanying self arises. It's really starting with this vague tendency to grasp at the comfortable place I create: this place of "I like this, I want more of this, I feel most comfortable with this." A grasping self emerges from this, and that is a painful thing to hold onto. That's why it's best to entertain all the thoughts with equanimity. Even if some thoughts can't be implemented at a given time (perhaps 99% of all thoughts cannot), we sometimes can say "hold that thought" to mean that perhaps the thought can be entertained at a later time or made practical then. Another way to say this is to be open to all views, cultivating a mind that considers all thoughts to be possibilities that can be picked up or put down anytime when the situation calls for it.
   How does all this relate to repentance? I think repentance is really about cultivating an open mind that allows me to understand that I am not my thoughts and I am not who I think I am. By clinging to a notion of how I think I should be, I close myself to other possibilities, not realizing that this self I create is just a comfortable habit.