The Profound Consciousness-only Meaning of the Diamond Sutra (21)

The Buddha said that what is to be subdued are precisely these seven deluded minds. How are they to be subdued? The World-Honored One said: 所有一切众生之类，若卵生，若胎生，若湿生，若化生，若有色，若无色，若有想，若无想，若非有想非无想，我皆令入无余涅槃而灭度之，如是灭度无量无数无边众生，实无众生得灭度者。The sentient beings of the three realms are divided into four forms of birth, nine states of existence, and twenty-five categories. Oviparous birth refers to sentient beings that do not dwell in the mother's womb and are not born from parents; the manas carries the Ālayavijñāna directly into the eggshell, and when external conditions such as temperature are complete, the embryo grows and breaks out of the shell, like chickens, ducks, snakes, and birds. Womb-born birth refers to beings who, in the antarā-bhava, with the manas carrying the Ālayavijñāna, enter the mother's womb; when the six faculties have grown and matured, they emerge from the womb.

Womb-born birth includes all humans, most animals, some ghost beings, and some asuras; moisture-born birth refers to beings without merit who are born under certain conditions of temperature and humidity (such as in damp soil and air by riversides and seashores), such as various insects and bacteria, and some asuras, etc.; transformational birth refers to being born through transformation, such as the devas of the various heavenly realms, beings of other lands, non-human beings of the ghost and spirit classes, hell beings, some classes of asuras and a small portion of animals, as well as bodhisattvas and arhats with supernatural powers, etc. Beings with form refers to the beings of the desire realm and the form realm who possess a material body. The material body is also called the aggregate of form — the physical form that begins from entering the womb as a fertilized egg and lasts until birth and final dissolution. Because the Ālayavijñāna and the first seven consciousnesses dwell in and sustain the material body, the material body can engage in the various actions of bodily, verbal, and mental actions — this is called the aggregate of form; otherwise it would be a corpse and an insentient thing, such as plants and minerals.