The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
- T.S. Eliot

Some people say that the antidote to anger and hatred is love. But the word is almost meaningless.

You can say that you love someone. You can also say that you love the mountains, or you love music, or books, or movies. You can say you love doughnuts. All of these statements may be true, but they do not mean the same thing.

So, with love being so hard to define, it does not seem to follow that it is the antidote to anger or hatred. In fact, a certain type of "love" can easily and quickly turn into hatred - romantic love, which can be the most egocentric state, because it is all about you, not the person you purport to love. It is all about how they make you feel, what you want from them, what you expect from them. And when your expectations are not met, anger arises, and love is replaced by hatred, because love with attachment is not different than hatred. They are both manifestations of passion.

It is not love that will free us from anger and hatred - it is compassion. Without compassion, it is possible to be cruel to people we love; with compassion, cruelty becomes impossible, no matter how we feel about the other person, because compassion closes the gap between us and other people, other beings, the world and the universe.

Compassion is not about the self. Compassion has no expectations or attachment to outcomes, and therefore does not seek to control other people. Most importantly, when you feel compassion you do not see other people as being separate, so there is no one to control.

When you feel anger and aggression towards another person, try this:

Either think about a time when you saw them suffering terribly, or (if you have not seen them suffer) imagine them suffering terribly. I do not meant that you should imagine them getting what you think they deserve; I mean that you should imagine them being hurt in the worst, most tragic way possible, the worst way that you have ever been or even can imagine being. In that harsh light, I think you will find it difficult to feel angry or hateful towards them.

I have found this practice to be one of the most effective means of cultivating compassion. There has been one person in my life who told me that she hated me, and I had no reason to doubt her word. Whether or not her hatred of me was warranted is not for me to judge. For various reasons, this person and I sometimes used to have to interact with one another. I did not reciprocate her hatred - I wished her well - but I often found myself reacting angrily to her aggression. 

Whenever I felt anger taking hold of me, I remembered a time when I had to leave her in a hospital. I remembered how small and frightened and broken she was. I remembered how she cried as I left her there, and how I cried as I drove away, because I was and am as small and frightened and broken as she was. When I remembered her face as I left her there, any feelings of anger towards her were gone, and I just wanted her to be happy.

That is not love. Nor is it pity, which is just benign contempt. It is compassion, a recognition of the suffering of all beings, which is also a recognition that the hostility shown towards me by her small, deluded ego, and the angry reaction of my small, deluded ego, are just irrelevant.

When compassion arises, enlightenment manifests. The Buddha awakens, all delusions fall away, and there is no one to hate and no one to be hated.