Contentment is the emotional state in which one is not bored but one is also not highly interested in anything other than, perhaps, being in the situation or place that allows for the contented feeling to continue.
Perhaps laying on a beach and feeling the sun on one's skin is activity enough and the emotion of contentment continues while the particular individual is allowed to bathe in the sun and lounge with their eyes closed until the sun goes down.
The sun going down and, perhaps, the cool night air descending on the beachfront would end the contentment because the weather had changed to a degree that no longer allowed inaction and warmth. Now, as the sun set, the individual may, for instance, have to gather her or his belongings and drive three hours inland to get home for dinner or something like that.
Depending on the person in question, the driving conditions, and myriad other factors in the situation, this vehicular journey home may be more or less enjoyable than sun bathing. But, for the sake of this example, let's assume the entire highway route home is mired in a traffic jam because of an accident and, whilst driving home, the "check engine" light comes on, distracting our person of interest, and this causes him to rear end someone who stops short in front of his car when he glances down to see the "check engine" light blink on the dash behind the steering wheel.
Most normal individuals in this situation, stuck in traffic and now dealing with an accident of their own fault, would begin to perhaps feel the emotions of anger and anxiety arise in their consciousness. If the person in question were an advanced Buddhist monk, however, these emotions may not arise as the monk has spent a lifetime training herself to not react to these very situations and to be detached, at all times, from the world that can cause negative emotions to arise without warning.
"I am fine" thinks the female Buddhist monk as she calmly pulls to the side of the road, smiling as she gets out of the vehicle to apologize to the driver of the car in front of her that now has a crushed rear bumper. However, the first, more typical western individual in the scenario would probably be thinking or screaming something more along the lines of "For Fuck's Sake! Jesus Christ! Oh shit I fucked this fucking shit up!" as he slams his hands in anger against the steering wheel whilst pulling off to the side of the road.
"My goddamn insurance is going to go up and I'm going to have to pay for these damages out of pocket if I want to keep my rates down. Holy fuck, this is going to cost me thousands of dollars either way. What a fucking dumbass I am! Shit!". The female monk, perhaps, can calmly deal with any financial hardship to come because she is not concerned with being attached to money or things, like the car that now has a crumpled hood.
The man, however, who was in a perfectly contented emotional state while on the beach is now ranting and raving at the driver of the car he hit as he thinks the car's stopping short was the real reason for the accident and he is exhonerrated from the damages in his eyes. "How are you going to pay for this?
You stopped about a hundred feet short of the car in front of you jackass! What the fuck were you thinking?!" he yells at the driver of the car he hit, his hands flailing and gesticulating as his heart rate increases and fight or flight chemicals swarm through his body. "I'm supposed to be in Hot Springs in ten minutes you know!" he says as he searches the glove box for his insurance information.
The woman monk, however, in the same situation, calmly walked to the driver's side door of the damaged car and asks in a level tone of concern, "I'm so sorry I hit you, is everyone alright?". She thinks nothing of the material cars but only of the people who may have gotten whiplash inside of the one in front of her with the freshly dented bumper.
Returning to the emotion of contentment, it is a slightly positive emotional state in which there is some interest in the slight degree of easy pleasure that is being had whilst doing any number of things like playing Go, watching a movie, writing a novel, or building some furniture.
Some people, during some parts of these passtimes, may pass from contentment to enjoyment and back down to boredom or even go towards anger and anxiety if, for example, the Go player stands to lose his weeks pay on the game he bet $500 that he would win and that now appears to have been a very bad decision as his opponent surrounds his white stones with no way out of the trap laid by the black stones.
