Zen treats the relationship between form and emptiness as fundamentally non-dual. Drawing on the Heart Sūtra’s insight that “form is emptiness; emptiness is form,” it understands all concrete expressions—rituals, postures, chants, temple rules—not as something separate from emptiness but as its very manifestation. Emptiness here does not mean a nihilistic void, but the absence of fixed, independent self-nature in any phenomenon. Thus, the forms of practice are not obstacles to ultimate reality; when seen clearly, they are its direct expression.

Within this perspective, ritual functions as a vehicle of realization rather than an end in itself. Formal practices such as sitting meditation, bowing, chanting, or ceremonial activity are treated as skillful means that stabilize body and mind, allowing the practitioner to discern the empty, interdependent nature of all phenomena. Because rituals are themselves empty, they can be used flexibly: fully engaged yet not reified. The same outward form can be “dead” when performed mechanically for gain or status, or “living” when it embodies awareness, compassion, and non-attachment.

Zen therefore cautions against both rejecting ritual as mere illusion and clinging to it as inherently sacred. Either extreme is seen as a misunderstanding of emptiness. The middle way is to use forms wholeheartedly while seeing through their insubstantiality, much like riding a raft without carrying it afterward. In this way, ritual becomes a transparent tool: respected, utilized, and not grasped.

Ultimately, this insight is extended beyond formal religious settings into the fabric of everyday life. Activities such as eating, working, sweeping, or the proverbial “chop wood, carry water” are all understood as forms that, when performed with undivided attention and without self-centered grasping, reveal their empty nature. The outer pattern of life may remain unchanged, yet the understanding of its emptiness transforms ordinary conduct into enlightened activity. Form and emptiness interpenetrate at every moment, and recognizing this is central to Zen’s vision of practice.