Ritual

Before the opening service at our Tuesday night sitting I read a quote from the Sweeping Zen website, it's part Bodhidharma and part a contemporary teacher.  
"Bodhidharma, the mythological  founder of Zen Buddhism, said that ritual and liturgy are the expression of the whole mind. Is there a place where your mind can’t express itself? Do you relegate it to a time a place? Is it at the bedside but not in the rest of your life? To do this is a form of deprivation from living your life." - Koshin Paley Ellison"
At the recent retreat I attended at Great Vow Monastery, Chozen Roshi said something like when you don't give your self to the chanting you not only deprive your self but you deprive the entire Universe.
I've often heard that Zen or Buddhism isn't a religion, I don't really care if it is or isn't but the "religious" things we do like chanting and bowing don't just compliment our practice they are our practice.