If you\u2019re 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 \u201cH.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III\u201d. The remaining 10% was about half by some Chinese woman, I don\u2019t 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. \u201cChang is one of the greatest artists of his generation\u201d - okay, everyone has to say that. \u201cThere have been several Congressional resolutions praising Chang\u2019s brilliance\u201d\u2026okay, I guess Congress praises artists sometimes. One sculpture is \u201cthe first irreproducible art in the human world\u201d\u2026that\u2019s kind of strange. Chang has \u201cmore accomplishments than anyone else in the past few thousand years\u201d\u2026okay, 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\u2019t 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\u2019s good art and you can see it for free, subsidized by the artist\u2019s 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.
![\"image\"](\"/media/f6135c37430e01360924ce520579cec348a4a58b_eb2a99731f34.jpg\")
Also, some of his more hyperbolic claims - that he was awarded the World Peace Prize by members of Congress, or that a Congressional resolution is pending to recognize him as the true incarnation of the primordial Buddha - are 100% accurate. He must just have really good lobbyists. See eg https://projects.propublica.org/represent/bills/110/hres1423 and https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-112sres614ats/pdf/BILLS-112sres614ats.pdf for details. Some other things he seems to have managed, somehow (source 1, source 2)
- In 2011, the then Mayor of Washington, D.C., Vincent Gray, proclaimed January 19th as \u201cH.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III Day.\u201d The mayor called on D.C. residents to join him in saluting \u201cHis selfless and exceptional work to spread the word of peace to all those in His presence.\u201d The Unites States Postal Service also issued a commemorative cover in celebration of \u201cHis Holiness Dorje Chang Buddha III Day.\u201d
\n- 5,612 experts and scholars representing forty-eight countries and \nregions at the World Poets and Culture Congress unanimously named Master\n Wan Ko Yee [as the Buddha is also known] as a Distinguished \nInternational Master.\u201d\n\n
- 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: \u201cI 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.\u201d 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.