Afflictive emotions

Here's another passage from the Dalai Lama's words in The Art of Happiness:

Generally speaking there are many different kinds of afflictive or negative emotions, such as conceit, arrogance, jealously, desire, lust, closed-mindedness, and so on. But out of all these, hatred and anger are considered to be the greatest evils because they are the greatest obstacles to developing compassion and altruism, and they destroy one's virtue and calmness of mind.
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We cannot overcome anger and hatred simply by suppressing them. We need to actively cultivate the antidotes to hatred: patience and tolerance. ...[I]n order for you to be able to successfully cultivate patience and tolerance you need to generate enthusiasm [and] a strong desire to seek it. The stronger your enthusiasm, the greater your ability to withstand the hardships that you encounter in the process. When you are engaged in the practice of patience and tolerance, in reality, what is happening is you are engaged in a combat with hatred and anger. Since it is a situation of combat, you seek victory, but you also have to be prepared for the
possibility of losing that battle. So while you are engaged in combat, you should not lose sight of the fact that in the process, you will confront many problems. You should have the ability to withstand these hardships. Someone who gains victory over hatred and anger through such an arduous process is a true hero.

It is important in engaging a metaphor like that of combat not to forget that we always need to have compassion for ourselves. Remember, the anger or hatred comes from attachment. The attachment itself is not our true nature. It is a function of the ego. It is fine to want to dissolve the attachment and to see that as true combat. But we are not fighting against ourselves. Remember the slogan from the Seven Points of Mind Training: "Begin the exchange of compassion with yourself". Never lose sight of the fact that all your training is for the purpose of bringing happiness to yourself - never unhappiness!