The Young Buddhist Association Indonesia (YBAI) has unveiled a record-breaking 5.6-meter transparent Buddha statue inside a major shopping mall in Surabaya, northern Java, launching a high-profile Vesak 2026 celebration aimed at promoting interfaith harmony through modern public outreach.
Launched on 27 May in the heart of one of Indonesia’s busiest malls, the Buddha image earned a new record from the Museum Rekor-Dunia Indonesia (MURI) as the nation’s largest transparent rupang (Buddha statue).
The vice-chair of Vesak Festival 2026, For Clea Alvina, emphasized that the record was not about prestige: “It is a medium to introduce the universal values of the Buddhist tradition to a wider public.”
Organized by the YBAI, the event will run in Surabaya, the association’s home base, from 27–31 May, and Jakarta, home to the country’s largest Buddhist population, from 3–7 June.
The YBAI is the leading Buddhist youth organization in Indonesia. Through a deeply held conviction in the Buddha’s message of compassion, growth, and liberation, the association promotes a positive lifestyle among the young in order to cultivate a society founded on wisdom, compassion, and gratitude. The association is involved in establishing Buddhist organizations nationwide, propagating the study of the Dharma among young people, and providing leadership training.
The installation uses a unique wire-mesh design to express “interbeing,” the Buddhist philosophy of interconnectedness popularized by the late Thich Nhat Hanh. By staging the religious celebration within secular retail spaces, the YBAI aims to engage with the broader public in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation ahead of the sacred Buddhist festival, which this years falls on 31 May.
The work is woven from interlocking wire mesh—thousands of small knots forming a single, see-through body. Crafted by a Balinese artist over two to three months, the image embody’s this year’s theme: “Interbeing: Our Happiness, Our Shared Responsibility.”
MURI validator and notary Paula said of the sculpture: “It is a symbol of interconnection—an awareness that self, others, and nature are all linked and mutually sustaining. Nothing stands apart.”
Beyond the transparent Buddha image, the festival’s other centerpiece is intended as an immersive first-hand experience of interbeing. Visitors step into a 3D walk-through installation built to translate the idea of interbeing into a sensory experience. As they move through the tunnel, participants are drawn into a flow of imagery in which self, others, and the natural world appear as a single, interwoven fabric, each part holding up the rest—an opportunity for the observer to quietly recognize that nothing in life truly stands alone.
The YBAI explained that for cities like Surabaya and Jakarta, the mall may be the most democratic public space society has—where people of every faith, ethnicity, economic class, and age congregate side by side.
“Many who would never set foot in another community’s temple, church, or mosque pass one another there in ease,” the YBAI shared with BDG. “If the Dharma is to reach a wide public, it must go to where people already are, rather than waiting for them to come.”
The objective is to reframe Vesak as an act of hospitality; Buddhists opening the doors wide to anyone, regardless of their faith tradition.
“Here the meaning of dana deepens: true generosity is not only material but the offering of space, attention, and a sense of welcome,” the YBAI emphasized. “To be a gracious host is itself a concrete form of Dharma practice—and when people of different faiths feel at ease gathering together, that is where shared humanity comes alive.
“The afflictions the Buddha named 2,500 years ago—anxiety about the future, the exhaustion of constant comparison, addiction to validation, the fear of loss—are precisely the mental crises facing today’s younger generation. The Dharma offers no instant cure, only a new way of seeing: mindfulness, compassion, and the art of letting go, tools available to anyone across any religious line.”
The YBAI noted that the celebration was not aimed at changing anyone’s beliefs or for feeling superior to others.
“As the Kalama Sutta teaches, one should not accept something merely because it is tradition, but because one has experienced its benefit for oneself,” said the YBAI. “The festival, in this spirit, presents the values of goodness without imposing a view—how much each visitor takes away remains entirely their own choice.”
This year’s record-breaking sculpture extends a remarkable streak as the YBAI’s fourth consecutive MURI record for Vesak. It follows the tallest indoor Buddha image (12.3 meters) in 2023, the largest moving image (6.5 meters) in 2024, and the largest floating image (8.34 meters) in 2025.
“Held consistently since 2015, the festival has become one of Indonesia’s most visible expressions of public-facing Buddhist life,” the YBAI shared. “The invitation, finally, is open to all—devotees who celebrate, neighbors of other faiths who come as warm guests, and the simply curious who happen to be passing by. The Dharma never compels. It only opens the door, sets out what is good, and lets stillness speak for itself.”
Buddhism, practiced by 0.7 per cent of the population—roughly two million people—is the second-oldest spiritual tradition in Indonesia after Hinduism. According to historical accounts, Buddhism first flourished on the archipelago around the sixth century, which was followed by ascent and decline of a number of powerful Buddhist empires, including the Shailendra dynasty (c. 8th–9th centuries), the Srivijaya empire (c. 7th–12th centuries), and the Mataram empire (c. 8th–11th centuries). Today, the majority of Indonesian Buddhists are affiliated with Mahayana schools of Buddhism, although communities of Theravada and Vajrayana practitioners also exist.
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