Shinto is rich in ritual, and its spirituality is expressed less through doctrine than through carefully enacted ceremonies that cultivate purity and right relationship with the kami. At the heart of this are purification rites, known as harae or misogi, which employ water, salt, or ritual implements to remove impurity and restore clarity of spirit. At shrines, visitors customarily wash hands and rinse the mouth at a water basin before approaching the sanctuary, then offer prayers with a sequence of bows and claps. Priests recite formal prayers, called norito, and present offerings such as rice, sake, salt, water, and other pure foods, expressing gratitude and reverence toward the kami. These daily and regular observances maintain an atmosphere of sacred order in both shrine and household life.

Alongside these ongoing practices stand the great festivals, or matsuri, which mark seasonal changes, agricultural cycles, and the presence of particular kami within a community. New Year shrine visits, known as hatsumode or associated with Shogatsu, are especially significant, as people seek blessings and purification for the year ahead. Many festivals include processions, sometimes with portable shrines carrying the kami through the streets, accompanied by music, dance, and communal celebration. Sacred dance and music, such as kagura, are offered as acts of devotion and as a way of making mythic narratives and divine presence tangible. In this way, matsuri weave together the spiritual and social dimensions of life, affirming harmony between humans, nature, and the unseen world.

Shinto also marks the major passages of human life with distinct ceremonies that place individual destinies under the care of the kami. Newborns are brought to a shrine in a rite often called omiyamairi or miyamairi, where they are presented to the local kami and blessed. Children at the ages of three, five, and seven participate in the Shichi-Go-San ceremony, receiving prayers for growth and protection. Coming-of-age observances and shrine-based weddings similarly combine purification, offerings, and the sharing of sake, binding personal transitions into a larger sacred pattern. Groundbreaking and construction blessings extend this concern to dwellings and public spaces, acknowledging that land and built environments also stand within the sphere of the kami.

Underlying all these diverse forms—daily offerings, seasonal festivals, life-cycle rites, and priestly ceremonies—is a consistent emphasis on purification, gratitude, and respectful communication with the divine. Rituals at shrines are complemented by practices in homes, where talismans from shrines may be placed and simple offerings made, sustaining an ongoing relationship with protective kami. Through such repeated gestures, Shinto ritual life shapes an ethos in which the ordinary world is never wholly separate from the sacred, and where maintaining harmony with the kami is understood as a continuous, lived responsibility.