I would like to just say a few general things.
Regarding dharma teachers, yes, the emanations of buddhas and bodhisattvas are countless. However, in sutras such as the Lotus Face Sutra and the Ratnakuta Sutra, Buddha uses the analogy of the worms inside the lion's body to describe the destruction of the dharma. The Buddha said to Ananda in the Lotus Face Sutra: "Ananda, there is nothing other than those evil bhikshus within my dharma that are like poisonous thorns who can destroy my teachings, who will destroy the collections of Buddhadharmas that I have gathered over three great eons' accumulation and practice of great effort." The Buddha said similar things to Kasyapa in the Ratnakuta. In then Shurangama Sutra, it says that in the degenerate age, "there will be as many deviant teachers propounding their methods as there are sands in the Ganges" Just because a person is said to be teaching dharma, is no guarantee of purity or their status as an emanation.
Regarding the Vinaya, it is much more vast and profound than a mere list of rules contained in the Pratimoksha sutra. The Vinaya explains the origins for each rule, provides guidelines for developing and maintaining a harmonious community, provides instructions on resolving conflicts, instructions on developing proper conduct and comportment, and many other principles. Shariputra was first inspired to follow the dharma not through any teaching, but from seeing the dignified way in which Assaji was walking. For Gandenpas, let us not forget that one of the four great deeds of Lama Tsongkhapa's life was the teaching of the Namtsedeng commentary on Vinaya for three months. Of the countless activities of this great master, why was this chosen as one of the four great deeds? Because the Vinaya is the lifeblood that will sustain the proper dharma in this world.
Je Rinpoche himself writes in his commentary to the bodhisattva precepts:
The fact is that even if you have not already received [the prātimokṣa] as an actual member of the seven prātimokṣa classes, the bodhisattva vow can be created. However, if you are a suitable basis for prātimokṣa [i.e., a human being] you should take the prātimokṣa in some form, be it lay or monastic, beforehand. Otherwise you will transgress the order of the Jina's teaching. By analogy, you may take the monk's vow without having taken the novice vow, and it will be created, but it is wrong in practice.
Some of the "It is not a basis" party argue: "It is an obstruction to the creation [of the bodhisattva vow], because if you fail to avoid the attitude of 'my own welfare, ' the bodhisattva vow will not be created. At the same time it is an obstruction to its maintenance, because if the bodhisattva vow-holder should generate the attitude of 'my own welfare,' that vow will fail."
This makes the mistake of failing to distinguish the prātimokṣa vow from the lesser-vehicle attitude. In creating the bodhisattva vow you must relinquish the lesser-vehicle attitude, but you need not relinquish the prātimokṣa vow. If someone holding the greater-vehicle vow should generate a lesser-vehicle attitude, he will fail in the Greater Vehicle but without relinquishing the prātimokṣa. The reasons for this are as follows: (1) The prātimokṣa is shared by both vehicles. (2) That [inferior] attitude is not, strictly speaking, a cause for relinquishing the prātimokṣa. And (3) the prātimokṣa vow-holder who receives the higher vow becomes a basis for the good fortune [of achieving buddhahood]. Therefore, to give up the lower vow on the grounds that you are maintaining the higher vow, cutting the root of the Jina's dispensation, is a great hailstorm to their crop of benefit and pleasure for many generations; it is a misconception that entirely misconstrues the quintessence of the higher as well as the lower texts, so put it far away.
In order to prevent such misconception from arising, the noble Teaching on the Three Vows says: "Therefore you should comply with the prātimokṣa taught here. Kasyapa, beings who fail to comply with the prātimokṣa are beings who fail to comply with the powers and confidence of the Buddha. Any beings who fail to comply with the powers and confidence of the Buddha are beings who fail to comply with the awakening of buddhas of the past, the future, and the present. The karmic maturation of that does not approach a hundredth part of the suffering experienced in hell by as m any sentient beings as inhabit a universe system of a thousand-million worlds. It does not match a thousandth, a hundred-thousandth, a million-millionth, or any number, fraction, calculation, example, or comparison. Desiring to avoid such suffering and unhappiness, you should avoid such behavior on the part of monks by a thousand miles. If the mention of it is to be avoided, what of regarding and heeding it? They should be avoided."
And the Questioning of Subahu Tantra says:
All crops depend on the earth
Two grow without problem;
Good white factors depend upon ethics,
Watered by compassion for their growth.
All the pure ethics of the prātimokṣa
That I the Jina have spoken as vinaya,
Should be taken to heart by lay tantrics,
Except for the signs and the ceremonies.
What this says is that excepting the monastic signs, ceremonial acts, and unshared precepts, what the disciplinary code teaches that one should accept and reject should be taken to heart even by lay tantrics. What need to mention monastic tantrics and holders of the bodhisattva vow?
The great scholar Jñānaśrīmitra, crest jewel of Kashmiri sugatas, has forbidden such misconceived doubts with several emphatic statements. From his Consistency of Ethics, Vows, and Pledges:
First basing yourself as a monastic,
Maintain the paths of tantra and the perfections;
If you later become confused by them,
Maintain the vow of the auditors', etc.,
From the treatises of the disciplinary code,
The prātimokṣa, and the rainy season retreat.
When you cannot keep a majority
Of the trainings taught in it,
Eliminate those that contradict
Holding the bodhisattva vow,
And carry on.
And:
Having rejected the monastic vow,
Neither the tantric vow nor that
Of the perfections will be held.
And:
The most distinguished intellectuals
Are bodhisattva monks;
Being skilled in means, they do not dream
Of transgressing in any way.
With such statements he explains the matter in detail. In various scriptures as well, statements are made concerning universal monarchs, great heroes who, remaining in the home life, have long trained themselves in the bodhisattva career, who then leave home to go forth to the monastic life, eager for ordination. Therefore those who maintain the better vehicle must hold the prātimokṣa generally, and the monastic vows within it, to be especially dear.
The underlined text in the following is Asanga writing in the
Bodhisattvabhūmi, the commentary is Je Rinpoche.
1.2 Not training in the shared precepts.
Not training for the sake of others ' faith.
The bodhisattva trains himself as do the auditors--not refusing to conform by distinguishing himself from them --according to what has been legislated by the Lord as trainings in the prātimokṣa, the source work, and in other vinaya texts such as the Vibhanga that are commentaries to it, to be reprehensible by precept (which means, those [rules] not reprehensible by nature, in order to guard the thought of others. He renounces whatever the auditors renounce.
In order that those previously without faith may have faith, and those previously faithful may develop it further, there are precepts for not drinking alcohol, abstinence from eating at the wrong time and so forth, as well as [not] digging the soil, making a fire, etc. You must train yourself in these as do the auditors, for if you fail to do so, not only does a fault develop contradicting the prātimokṣa --a misdeed also develops contradicting the bodhisattva vow.
9. The defeat of rejecting prātimokṣa. Two points.
9.1 The object who is made to understand: someone astutely training in prātimokṣa and the ethics of the disciplinary code.
9.2 He is made to understand by telling him that he will be purified by only generating the thought and reciting the Greater Vehicle. One says, "Why should you keep pure the ethics of monastic discipline? Generate the thought of full awakening and read the Greater Vehicle, and all misbehavior of body, speech, and mind that has developed because of defilement will be purified."
The old translation [of the SS] has, "Turn away from prātimokṣa and the generation of the thought, and apply yourself to reciting the Greater Vehicle." The version that appears in the new translation and in the AG scripture is correct, however, for the great commentary to the BCA declares, "The third comes from teaching someone else to reject the vow of prātimokṣa training and to purify himself only by generating the thought of and reciting the Greater Vehicle."
Therefore, to claim that true Vinaya is simply the attitude of renunciation is, I think, not in accordance with the intent of Je Rinpoche.
Edit: the quotations are from Mark Tatz's "Asanga's Chapter on Ethics With the Commentary of Tsong-Kha-Pa,
The Basic Path to Awakening,
The Complete Bodhisattva"
