Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.
Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.
Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself.
As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.