Most animals are vegetarians

Whenever I tell people I'm a vegetarian they ask, "Don't animals eat animals". Actually most animal species - including many of the ones people eat - are vegetarian.

But what about the animals who do eat animals? Recently I read a story (probably fictional) about a monk who saw a scorpion fall out of a tree into the water. As he rescued the scorpion and put it back in the tree the scorpion bit the monk. Soon the scorpion fell back in the water. Again the monk rescued the scorpion and again the scorpion bit him.

After this happened several times, someone who witnessed all this asked the monk why he wanted to help the ungrateful scorpion.

"While it is in the nature of the scorpion to bite, it is in the nature of the human to save." In fact, the only moral difference between us and a scorpion is our capacity to show compassion towards other creatures, human or animal.

Eric Bahrt

Pattaya