If you’re in San Francisco and looking for something to do, I recommend the International Art Museum of America on 1023 Market Street.
I went there kind of by accident last weekend, because I was walking by, needed to use a bathroom, saw it had free admission, and figured I could sneak in and out. It totally delivered - admission was genuinely 100% free, and the bathrooms were very nice. In fact, the whole building was very nice - beautiful floors, beautiful walls, an indoor waterfall meditation room. Also, there was literally nobody else there. This whole beautiful free museum was completely empty except for me, my friend, and the employees.
I was sufficiently mystified by this that I started looking more closely at the art. There were lots of different kinds of art there - sculpture, oil paintings, Chinese calligraphy. And of these hundreds, maybe thousands of objects, about 90% of them were by the same guy, a man named “H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III”. The remaining 10% was about half by some Chinese woman, I don’t remember her name, and half by famous European 17th century artists - just this smattering of Renaissance portraits in the middle of stuff by these two Chinese people.
Also, the plaques explaining the art started to get increasingly weird. “Chang is one of the greatest artists of his generation” - okay, everyone has to say that. “There have been several Congressional resolutions praising Chang’s brilliance”…okay, I guess Congress praises artists sometimes. One sculpture is “the first irreproducible art in the human world”…that’s kind of strange. Chang has “more accomplishments than anyone else in the past few thousand years”…okay, now I am officially suspicious.
A look at Google confirmed my hunch - the museum is a vanity project by a cult leader who wants to show off his art. It is 90% his stuff, plus a few real artists whose stuff he bought to make the museum seem a little more legitimate. But the thing is, his art is actually really good! His Wikipedia page says he was an artist first and only became a cult leader later, and he is actually a really multitalented painter and sculptor who would be impressive even if he didn’t have his own cult. Or else he makes his followers create good art and let him take credit for it. One or the other. The point is, it’s good art and you can see it for free, subsidized by the artist’s weird pseudo-Buddhist cult.
Also, his cult is great and he is great. For example, according to Chinese media, he used mystical power to rejuvenate himself and become young again. Here is a before-and-after picture of the process.
- In 2011, the then Mayor of Washington, D.C., Vincent Gray, proclaimed January 19th as “H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III Day.” The mayor called on D.C. residents to join him in saluting “His selfless and exceptional work to spread the word of peace to all those in His presence.” The Unites States Postal Service also issued a commemorative cover in celebration of “His Holiness Dorje Chang Buddha III Day.”
- 5,612 experts and scholars representing forty-eight countries and
regions at the World Poets and Culture Congress unanimously named Master
Wan Ko Yee [as the Buddha is also known] as a Distinguished
International Master.”
- Unless you are an astute follower of Buddhism, you may not have known that His Holiness Dorje Chang Buddha III has been recognized as the third incarnation of the original Buddha. His accomplishments clearly transcend religion, healing, art, philosophy, and literature. He continues to devote His time to a wide scope of cultural, religious, and various other domains directed at helping people in communities across the globe. His Holiness Dorje Chang Buddha III has made the following vow: “I will bear all of the karmic offenses committed by living beings, and I will give everyone all of the good karma and merit that I plant.” His Holiness the Buddha has been executing it exactly as is.
I think Dorje Chang Buddha should be a role model for all cult leaders. Instead of sexually abusing their followers or urging them to commit suicide, they should spend time bribing politicians to give them fake prizes and building art museums with free bathrooms in San Francisco.
