"I suspect most Westerners take "contentment" to have weaker connotations than is intended."
"...the joy from absence of dukkha can be quite fierce, and I think it is usually greatly underestimated."
If I may, I think you might be stuck on the degree or intensity of emotion - quantitative differences, while I think we are talking about qualitative differences.
Consider to scenarios: One is just after dessert at the end of Thanksgiving dinner. The other is opening a surprise birthday gift from a loved one that happens to be the perfect thing, though you didn't even know it existed.
The first will run you pretty close to the Buddhist ideal: worldly problems are, for the moment, gone. You are sated, warm, surrounded by friends, the stress and hurry of preparing the meal and hosting duties are, for the moment, gone. This is relief from dukkha. Some would call it happiness, but contentment or serenity hit closer to the mark, in terms of the nature of the feeling at the time.
The other may also distract you from worries for the moment, but cessation of worry is not actually the real working part of the emotion there. This is closer to the word "happiness" as Americans define it, the Denis Leary sense of the word, if you will.
no subject
"...the joy from absence of dukkha can be quite fierce, and I think it is usually greatly underestimated."
If I may, I think you might be stuck on the degree or intensity of emotion - quantitative differences, while I think we are talking about qualitative differences.
Consider to scenarios: One is just after dessert at the end of Thanksgiving dinner. The other is opening a surprise birthday gift from a loved one that happens to be the perfect thing, though you didn't even know it existed.
The first will run you pretty close to the Buddhist ideal: worldly problems are, for the moment, gone. You are sated, warm, surrounded by friends, the stress and hurry of preparing the meal and hosting duties are, for the moment, gone. This is relief from dukkha. Some would call it happiness, but contentment or serenity hit closer to the mark, in terms of the nature of the feeling at the time.
The other may also distract you from worries for the moment, but cessation of worry is not actually the real working part of the emotion there. This is closer to the word "happiness" as Americans define it, the Denis Leary sense of the word, if you will.