The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist and author.

I like to begin tonight with a cartoon that I saw a few years ago that I've always liked.

It has a female robot who's kind of jumping around.

She's ecstatic and she's saying, I'm free, I'm free, free at last.

I've overridden my manual drive.

I found my manual override button is really the language.

I'm free.

It seemed to me about the most perfect expression of how the path goes, that we have this conditioning.

We're trying to find a way to step out of our conditioned self and discover really the depth

and the aliveness and the beauty of who we are.

Tonight what I'd like to do is explore a key area of manual override.

Our conditioning to busyness.

I just want to check and see if there's anyone in here that thinks this is not going to be relevant.

There may be a few because that's not everybody's thing.

But many of us, and if it's not like physical busyness and doing in an outward way, it's

an inward kind of busyness.

We're always chewing on and picking on something in our minds.

I'm not talking about the kind of doing and activity that has to do with being creative

or productive or serving and engaged way.

I'm talking about addictive doing.

The reality is we live in this world where we all have demands and things that we want

to and like to do to take care of ourselves and our families and work and to help our

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