When we practice meditation, we need two types of meditation. One is what we call, “formal meditation,” and the second is “informal meditation.” Formal meditation means that you spend your time fully with your practice. Maybe you let go of your phone, you do not watch television, you do not communicate with others, you sit on your cushion, and your mind, body, and speech are fully dedicated to the meditation. If you do that, meditation develops very fast and it really gives you the best quality of your meditation. It improves your meditation a lot.
The other one is informal meditation. The first important point is that you need to develop your meditation with formal meditation. Then, to exercise and to deepen the formal meditation with different circumstances, with different situations, you need informal meditation. With informal meditation, you can meditate everywhere, anytime, and under any circumstances — while you are talking, walking, in all places.
Which one is important to do first? Formal meditation is important to do first. Formal meditation is like this: If you want to make a fire, first you need to have the right circumstances. You need tiny splinters of wood or grass, and then you can make a fire. Once the fire has become a little bit bigger, you can add more things. Once the fire becomes very big, you can add anything to the fire — big pieces of wood, strong wood, and other different things — everything you add helps the fire.
Similarly, a retreat is kind of like extending the formal meditation. Of course, we do formal meditation everyday for one hour, twenty minutes, or something — which is great — but it takes time to develop your meditation this way. Instead, if you continue to maybe practice for two days, then one week, one month, one year, etc., with this unbroken continuation, will really help you to develop your meditation experience. It is like comparing having a part-time job and full-time job. If you work part-time, your achievements are less, right? But if you work full-time, there are a lot of benefits.
Retreat is like being fully dedicated. And it is not only that, another benefit is the continuation — the benefit of the unbroken practice without being involved in other thoughts and emotions. For example: if you make a fire, when the fire becomes a little big bigger, if you then mix it with different circumstances, the fire will stay without not really developing. But, once the fire has really developed, if you then mix it with other circumstances it is okay, but doing it before that is quite difficult. Therefore, if we have the time, it is very important to do retreat.
There are two benefits, right? The first is that you can fully spend time with your practice, and the second is the benefit of the unbroken continuation.
There is also a third benefit. The third benefit is normally what we call — The causes of negative emotions, negative behaviour, negative habits, etc., all these come up because of three things: (1) The object is nearby, (2) the tendency in your mind, and (3) wrong motivation. When these three come together, negative actions may arise. One accumulate bad habits when all these come. So, we have the object and, also, deep in your mind you have not cut the root of negative emotions, plus, you have the wrong motivation.
For example: When you are angry, if the person with whom you are angry is near you all the time — of course, you feel anger on the inside — and your motivation is, “If I get the opportunity to fight with that person, I am going to do so.,” when these three come together, you will fight, and hit each other. But, if you do not have anger on the inside, and the person is there, then the situation will not produce negative emotions for you. Also, if you do not have the wrong motivation, even if you feel anger and the object of your anger is there, there will not be a result. If the object is not there, then, even if you have the wrong motivation and anger inside of you, it does not produce a result.
To cut this negative emotion, and to change motivation, is very difficult for a beginner. For a beginner, if you are away from the object and environment (of your negative emotion), it really gives you an opportunity to stay away from negative actions and all these things. Therefore, retreat makes you stay away from negative environments. While you are away from the negative environments, you transform on the inside and develop wisdom, compassion, and awareness. Then, anger begins to liberate and, at the same time, you are transforming the negative motivation, and later, even if the object is there, it will be fine. Therefore, the third benefit is that you are automatically away from the objects of negative emotions and negative behaviour — all those things.
In brief, retreat is really, really beneficial, normally. If you can do long retreat would be very good! But even a weekend retreat — Saturday and Sunday — is great! Every month we have four weekends, right? Three weekends you can spend on holidays or whatever you want to do, and one weekend you can do retreat. Therefore, even a two-days retreat will be really beneficial for you in order to boost your meditation experience.