It is probably the natural inclination of the brain that when we enjoy something -- or have received/perceived some sense of safety or satisfaction from it -- we want to protect that thing. So: what do we do when we want to protect something? Often, we build things like walls or other barriers to keep danger out and keep the thing we want to protect close at hand. Perhaps it is an evolutionary impulse.

When we do build walls, we rarely muse upon the fact that a wall works two ways--keeping others out and keeping us in. In 12-step programs, the 12th and last step is to take what you have learned and pass it on to others.

This, as it turns out, is another way of protecting; spreading the wisdom and the care and lessons we have received to others.

As the Thai ascetic-philosopher Buddhadasa says, "Oneself is the prison." We can release ourselves from this prison of self by pulling out of the "me," "my," "I" way of thinking we are given soon after birth and thinking first of the greater good.

I have found that a self-check on Buddhadasa's eight prisons (life itself; our instincts; the senses; superstition, sacred institutions, teachers, holy things; self-aware "goodness"; beliefs/views; "purity") to be a useful corrective.

For instance, I have learned over the past few years of sobriety the folly of trying to find personal meaning in substances, people, sex and the like. I've also widened that insight into seeing where this attachment comes into play with things like material possessions -- not that I own that many "things," comparatively speaking. Rather, it was the act of shopping that I think allowed me some sort of escape, even as, if you'd asked me, I would have told you those things had no meaning for me (and they often didn't, once I actually "had them" in my possession).

One thing that really rang true and bell-like within me while marinating on Buddhadasa's teaching was this: if it isn't a prison, it won't trouble us. That is to say, it won't box us in or make us feel out of sorts. I think too often I am able to compartmentalize my prisons. For instance, seeing and deciding to work on a particular prison I might deem as "easier" -- say, sacred institutions -- to the detriment of also turning my eye towards the prison of "I" and my sensual desires and instincts.

The framing of these stumbling blocks as prisons is a stroke of analogical inspiration. Most everyone has at least a healthy interest in staying out of prison and retaining their physical freedom, but we don't often stop to muse on how much we are holding ourselves back with our thoughts (or lack of thinking), our actions, our deeds, and our interactions.

I often tell people that to focus too much attention on training concentration (sitting) without living the dharma the other 23 hours and 30 minutes of the day is akin to lifting weights for vanity reasons. You can focus solely on weightlifting, to the exclusion of everything else, and perhaps become a bodybuilder, with muscles on top of muscles. But is this functional strength? Can you hit a baseball, or run a marathon? Can you take that concentration and focus it upon your life?

Something that gives me great pleasure -- that sort of "time stops" pleasure -- is to take a perhaps complicated or convoluted idea or story and break it down for others in a way they might understand. The way I do this is by selflessly (as possible as that may be at the time!) offering forth my own, honest experience, translated through the clearest mind that I can muster. Sometimes I may point out the beautiful scenery that awaits one further down the path; other times it's warning them of a mudhole I keep getting stuck in; both are the province of a guide.

Would you be friends with your own mind? You know when you're deeply involved in a conversation with a good friend (or anyone, really) and it's so engaging and exciting and so…present that you can't tell where they end and you begin?

Do you have that kind of conversation with your own mind? Or is your mind kind of an asshole? Is it negative? Mean or judgmental? If your brain were made flesh -- like, fully-formed, human-sized flesh -- would you introduce it to your friends, take it home to me dear old ma and pa? Or would you be a little embarrassed of it?

My friend Lisa Donovan, in her excellent memoir Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger, talks about being frank with herself and taking inventory of her own choices so she could create "a bigger space for myself."

If your mind is a little unfriendly, take a look at all the strings which tether you and keep you from flying to sunnier vistas. Every such string or prison we can melt away means a wider space for ourself. Unlike its physical counterpart, inner real estate is cheap and infinite and available to anyone who's willing to settle and nurture it.

The best way to do this is no secret: be aware of your mind, and beware what it appears to be telling you. Do the Next Right Thing anytime you're presented with a choice, and you'll be shocked where it takes you.

Staying in the present means good things for both your (soon-to-be) past and your future, as both will be based on a solid foundation of doing one's best – doing the right thing in the moment -- and letting go of the rest. You'll have nothing to be ashamed of when looking back, and you'll have done the best you can (with the information you had at the time) to prepare yourself for a productive future.

Steve Parish, a longtime roadie-manager-armchair philosopher with The Grateful Dead, says that LSD taught him one important lesson: that you need to be flexible with the universe, or else it will break you. "You're not the boss of the situation; you're not in control," he says. "The truck is. The flat tire is. How do you adapt?"

You adapt by not being too rigid, he suggests. You listen. You collaborate. You use your creativity. What's more, you allow the situation itself to suggest the tools and the technique required. As the Dead themselves proved (at least on their best nights), when everything's working like it should, and man and machine/student and teacher are one, beautiful music can be made.