Lockdown Skill – Zen Rock Balancing
Photographs and Text By Chris Morris
Published on 23rd June, 2020
When you hear words like, ‘yogi’ or ‘meditation’ the images often conjured are of long bearded monks sitting peacefully on a far-off mountain top. But in fact, it can be very useful to apply the tools of meditation and mindfulness to the world immediately around you.
In essence meditation is simply the act of only being actively involved in one thing at a time, that could be a taste, a smell or even a feeling. As long as your entire focus is on that one ‘thing’ its meditation.
Monks in far off monasteries practice this by sitting very still for long periods of time, possibly dedicating their focus to their own breath, a chant or ‘mantra’ or even the feel of a rosary bead. But crucially the sole aim is to apply focus to a singular ‘thing’ and the process of meditation is teaching yourself how to do that.
Possibly at this point you’ve thought, “Wouldn’t it be lovely to dedicate 100% of my focus to my PhD, with no busy thoughts or nagging distractions!”. Well lucky for you there is an expanse of literature out there to get started, I personally enjoy Headspace but there are plenty of other options.
But there is no reason to start your journey into meditation and mindfulness with a formal practice, it can be nice to start off with something a little more tactile that has a more tangible end goal. Which is where the art of zen rock balancing comes in.
The goal is to stack rocks and that’s really all there is to it. As you practice more and more you will be able to make your stacks look more and more gravity defying. There is no hidden secret, no glue, or bolts – just patience.
As an engineering student it would be amiss to not have a short discussion as to the physics of rock balancing, but it’s quite simple really. When you stack rocks its helpful to imagine every additional rock stacked as a tripod, with three points of contact connecting it to the rock below. In order for the rock to stand unaided the centre of gravity must lie within the three ‘legs’ of the tripod, the three points of connection between the two rocks.
Rock balancing starts to look like ‘magic’ when the three legs of your tripod are so close together that to the human eye (or at least, the eye of a camera) the three points make it seem like the rock is balancing on a single point.
So how does meditation come into this? I suggest you try your hand at balancing rocks. The amount of focus you need to feel the centre of gravity of the rock and the minute differences felt when moving the rock is considerable. If fact, any successful rock balance requires the entirely of your focus. A distracted mind will serve like a heavy headwind, causing the rocks to topple with no hope of balance.
Along the way you will almost certainly feel that your patience has run out, you might get angry that your balance isn’t working. That is all part of the process, as soon as you’re angry or impatient you aren’t focusing 100% on the process of balancing the rocks.
Maybe your angry because the set of rocks you’ve picked just doesn’t seem to work or possibly impatient that this particular balance has taken such a long time to get working. But in returning your focus to the act of balancing, and feeling the movement of the rocks, rather than feeling frustrated that you haven’t yet reached your end goal. This is where the meditation starts to happen.
Perhaps at this point you may start noticing parallels between the act rock balancing and your own work, perhaps even your PhD? But I would never be so bold as to suggest a common thread running between them.
“I see a world on the edge of a blade. Without balance, it will fall.”
Chris Morris is a First Year PhD Student at Imperial College. His PhD involves the investigation of Creep Crack Growth in Stainless Steel Welds for the UK’s current fleet of AGR reactors.