The heart has long been used as a symbol to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral,
and in the past also intellectual core of a human being.
As the heart was once widely believed to be the seat of the human mind,
the word heart continues to be used poetically to refer to the soul,
and stylized depictions of hearts are extremely prevalent symbols representing love.

In Buddhism the heart symbol also developed from the fig tree (the bodhi tree)
into the symbol not of love, but of enlightenment.