Justice as Dharma—Alignment With Universal Law

Sor Juana's intellectual and moral advocacy was grounded in conviction that certain principles transcend human whim: justice exists; truth exists; human dignity is real. She appeals to universal law, divine order, and reason accessible to all. This is strikingly consonant with the Buddhist concept of dharma—the universal law of cause and effect, the nature of reality itself. Dharma is not imposed from outside but inherent in how things actually are. Similarly, Sor Juana argued that women's right to knowledge is not a special privilege to be granted but a recognition of what is already true: women possess reason and the capacity for understanding. Justice, in this view, is not subjective preference but alignment with reality. When society denies women education, it violates dharma—the natural order wherein all conscious beings naturally seek truth. For practitioners engaged in social justice, this concept offers grounding: you are not merely expressing subjective values or political ideology; you are recognizing and defending what aligns with the actual nature of things. Injustice persists through ignorance of interdependence and shared nature. Dharmic justice work is therefore not different from Buddhist practice but integral to it—uncovering reality and aligning oneself and society with that reality.