Guru Loden Chokse
Guru Loden Choksé ( ’Wise Seeker of the Sublime’) — one of the Eight Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche.
Guru Rinpoche would master a teaching the first time he encountered it, and experienced visions of deities without needing to practise. Attaining the first vidyadhara level, the stage of ‘the vidyadhara level of maturation’ or ‘vidyadhara with karmic residue’, he was known as Loden Choksé, ‘Wise Seeker of the Sublime’.
The Eight Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche are the 8 principal forms assumed by Guru Rinpoche at different points in his life:
Guru Tsokyé Dorje (birth)
Guru Shakya Sengé (ordination)
Guru Nyima Özer (subjugating demonic spirits)
Guru Padmasambhava (establishing Buddhism in Tibet)
Guru Loden Choksé (mastery of the teachings)
Guru Pema Gyalpo (kingship)
Guru Sengé Dradrok (subjugation of non-buddhists)
Guru Dorje Drolö (concealing terma, binding spirits under oath)
The Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava do not depict different Padmasambhavas, but reflect his ability to appear according to different needs and demands. In fact, they are called in Tibetan Guru Tsen Gyé, the eight ‘names’ of the Guru; each manifestation demonstrates a different principle that unveils the innermost nature of mind.
As Guru Rinpoche said: “Mind itself is Padmasambhava; there is no practice or meditation apart from that.”
