Reddit mentions of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings

I like the zen cases, and the "sayings of literature" for the zen characters where its available. There are the Sayings of Joshu, Sayings of Layman Pang, and Sayings of Dongshan.

Some translations are so horrible, and the preface/introduction parts so slanted it is hard to take, but if you have any immunity at all to religious rhetoric, you should be able to cope with texts like

https://www.amazon.com/Sayings-Layman-Pang-Classic-China/dp/1590306309

and

https://www.amazon.com/Recorded-Sayings-Zen-Master-Joshu/dp/157062870X/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=157062870X&pd_rd_r=ZD18X8D9RYN83KG1972P&pd_rd_w=xOAri&pd_rd_wg=U5T69&psc=1&refRID=ZD18X8D9RYN83KG1972P

and

https://www.amazon.com/Just-This-Dongshan-Practice-Suchness/dp/1611802288/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519943814&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Sayings+of++Dongshan

People get very particular, find their favorite editions and translations, go very deep into it, but for me, years ago, starting out, even this simple little book

https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Flesh-Bones-Collection-Writings/dp/B001Q745TS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519943904&sr=1-2&keywords=Paul+Reps+flesh+bones

or

https://www.amazon.com/Way-Zen-Alan-W-Watts/dp/0375705104/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519943976&sr=1-1&keywords=alan+watts+the+way+of+zen

were real gifts that I could and did read over and over. The main thing is to pick up the scent and be able to avoid frauds that take you down a dead end or a different path than what the zen stories were pointing to.

If you don't mind u/ewk, just look at the texts he quotes in his posts: https://np.reddit.com/user/ewk/submitted/

there is a treasure right there, for free.