Within Ryōbu Shintō, fire rituals such as homa or gakubatsu stand at the heart of a shared Shintō–esoteric Buddhist ritual world, functioning above all as powerful means of purification and transformation. The flames are understood to burn away kegare and negative karma, so that both practitioners and sacred spaces are ritually clarified. Offerings cast into the fire—whether conventional Shintō items like rice and sake or more explicitly esoteric elements—are believed to be transmuted into subtle spiritual energy. In this way, the fire becomes the medium through which devotion, gratitude, and petitions are conveyed to the divine.

These rites also dramatize the Ryōbu vision of a deep identity between kami and Buddhas. The same ritual fire is directed simultaneously to Shintō deities and to Buddhist figures, especially the great cosmic Buddha Dainichi Nyorai, who in Ryōbu thought is paired with Amaterasu. Through mantra, mudra, visualization, and the recitation of norito and sutras, the ritual field becomes a place where kami are honored as manifestations of Buddhist wisdom. The ascending smoke and leaping flames are read as visible signs of this non-dual relationship, where the local and the universal, the Shintō and the Buddhist, are not opposed but mutually illuminating.

At the same time, fire rituals serve very concrete religious purposes. They are performed at key seasonal junctures, during festivals, and for specific petitions such as protection, healing, or the removal of obstacles. The wisdom-fire is seen as burning away ignorance and defilements, thereby opening a path for blessings and spiritual progress to manifest in the lives of participants and their communities. In this sense, homa or gakubatsu are not merely symbolic spectacles, but disciplined ritual technologies through which Ryōbu Shintō embodies its core insight: that purification, worldly benefit, and awakening all unfold within a single, shared sacred cosmos.