Journal
Blog
Notes on building Dharma Atlas in the open — product updates, catalog craft, and practical guides for places, people, and paths of practice.
- Building in the open
Welcome to the Dharma Atlas blog
Why we're writing in public about Dharma Atlas — product decisions, catalog work, and practical guides for practitioners and place managers.
- Building in the openCatalogs
Traditions and books: opening the catalog layer
Why Dharma Atlas is opening a traditions encyclopedia and teasing a books catalog—and how those layers help places, teachers, and practice make sense together.
- Building in the open
Pilgrimage planning: routes, favorites, and share
How Dharma Atlas approaches pilgrimage as a catalog of routes and sites—with maps, favorites, share links, customize flows, and travel legs—so planning can stay practical and respectful.
- Building in the open
Richer place profiles and community corrections
Place pages are becoming fuller records—photos, affiliations, offerings, and a path for submissions and corrections—so a listing can earn trust before anyone walks through the door.
- Explore
Planning a contemplative pilgrimage
How to plan a contemplative pilgrimage with Dharma Atlas—browsing routes and sites, customizing stops, saving favorites, and sharing an itinerary that stays grounded in place.
- Building in the open
Making explore feel local: Near You and map sync
How Dharma Atlas ties Nominatim location search, the markers API, list/map bounds sync, and nearby badges so Explore feels like a neighborhood tool—not a global dump of pins.
- Explore
Finding meditation centers near you
How to use the Dharma Atlas explore map, Near You, and tradition filters to locate meditation centers, temples, and practice groups in your area—or wherever you are traveling.
- Traditions
Inclusive by design: Buddhism and other nondual paths
How Dharma Atlas frames practice across traditions without collapsing lineages — ontology care for Zen, Theravāda, Tibetan, and related contemplative paths.
- Guides
Suggesting an entry and reporting corrections
How to suggest a missing meditation center or teacher, report outdated details, and contribute to Dharma Atlas in a way reviewers can trust and act on quickly.
- Catalogs
The hard part of building contemplative catalogs
Sourcing teachers and places, living with incomplete data, and designing for community corrections — what it actually takes to build a contemplative directory.
- Guides
How to claim and manage a listing
A practical walkthrough for center owners and sangha stewards who want to claim an existing Dharma Atlas listing, keep details accurate, and manage the page after login.
- Guides
How to add a place on Dharma Atlas
A practical walkthrough for adding a meditation center, monastery, or sitting group — what to prepare, how /add works, and what happens after you submit.
- Building in the open
Soft launch: what we're shipping first
A beta-honest look at Dharma Atlas's soft launch: what is real today, what stays incomplete on purpose, and how we are sequencing the next work.
- Building in the open
Accounts, claims, and trusting community data
Why Dharma Atlas has member accounts, how claiming a listing works, and what trust means when a directory depends on community enrichment.
- Building in the open
Launching an open directory of places and people
How Dharma Atlas started as a living map and list of practice places and teachers — and why an open directory matters more than a static guidebook.