Samding Dorje Phagmo Nubchen Sangye Yeshe (Tib:གནུབས་ཆེན་སངས་རྒྱས་ཡེ་ཤེས, Wylie: gnubs chen sangs rgyas ye shes, Chinese: 努千桑傑耶喜, Pinyin: Nǔqiān Sāngjié Yéxǐ) (9th century) was one of the twenty-five principal students of Guru Padmasambhava, revealer of Vajrayana and founder of the Nyingma school and of Tibetan Buddhism.

As well as his fame as one of the 25 principal disciples of Padmasambhava, Nubchen Sangye Yeshe is held in different sources to have been a direct disciple of Shri Simha, Vimalamitra, Kamalashila, Dhanadhala, Tshaktung Nagpo, Shantigarbha, Dhanasamskrita, Shakyadeva, Dhanarakshita, the Brahman Prakashalamkara, Dharmabodhi, Dharmaraja, Tsuglag Pelge, Acarya Vasudhara, Chetsenkye, Nak Jñanakumara, Sogdian Pelgi Yeshe and Gyelwei Yönten.

[3] Jacob Dalton states that: Nubchen Sanggyé Yeshé is renowned for having preserved a number of tantric lineages through the so-called “dark period” of Tibetan history (roughly 842-978 CE), when state-supported monastic Buddhism fell into decline.

[4] Eva Dargyay discusses the particular generation stage cycle of the 'Eight Pronouncements' (Wylie: bka'-brgyad) that Nubchen was empowered to practice by Padmasambhava and through the realisation of which Nubchen accomplished the specific emanation of this Manjushri 'yidam' (Wylie: lha), mandala of divine accoutrements and entourage and demonstrated his siddhi by deftly wielding the energetic phurba: Sangs-rgyas-ye-śes practiced the gŚin-rje-snying-thig, the divine power (lha) of which is Mañjuśri; as a sign of successful meditation, he thrust a ceremonial dagger (phur-bu) into a rock.

[6] In the Samten Migdrön, Nubchen Sangye Yeshe establishes a distinction within the Mahayana between: The 'suddenness' is further explicated and contextualised by Capriles, who mentions Huineng: In his sutra, Hui-neng noted that no tradition is sudden or gradual, and that these adjectives should be applied to students rather than to teachings or schools, for no doubt some students are more “sudden” than others (Wong Mou-Lam and A. F. Price, translators, 1969); however, the term is used to refer to the Ch’an or Zen School insofar as in it Awakening is not posited as the result of a gradual development through paths and levels, but as an instantaneous breakthrough.