[akprasad]

Here are some reasons people find retreat environments helpful:

- Change of setting loosens pre-existing habits (compare working in an office to working from home)

- Being surrounded by people doing the same thing as you can be a great source of energy and determination (compare working in a hacker space to working in your garage)

- Having a teacher handy to clarify doubts is a great source of accountability and advice (compare learning from another programmer to teaching yourself to code)

- Depending on the retreat, most chores are taken care of for you so you can focus on meditating (compare being a student with a dining hall to studying while employed)

Often the metaphor used is that a retreat is a container, i.e. it makes it easy to slip into habits conducive to long and concentrated meditation sessions. Peers and environment matter, even for meditation.