While I am not concluding this post. I am iterating few of my learnings since this post so as to benefit someone who reads this post later
I reread some of the articles on puredhamma.net. It does clarify the proper meaning of Anapanasati, and in my understanding it is essentially “taking in” of moral thoughts/actions and “discarding out” the opposite –essentially a process of purifying the mind.
I also went through some discussions on SN Goenkas methods in the forums –it was also helpful. Apart from breath meditation I was also performing body sensation scanning, and listening to discourses on discord channel and elsewhere. I can recollect that the sensation of cool-breeze-flow throughout the body happened during listening the discourses. I was at one point contemplating that the trade-off is eventually to sustain this pleasant sensation while suppressing sensual desires and anger.
While reading through the post on “1. Introduction to Buddhist Meditation” and in particular the audio discourse titled “The Hidden Suffering that We All Can Understand“. I realized that my situation was somewhat similar to what X (mentioned in the discourse) was going through. Where I was contemplating on the dilemma of sustaining pleasant sensations (niramisa sukha) and restraining/suppression of sensual desires. In case of X the dilemma was to sustain niramisa sukha or retain the joy and interests when reading novels or listening to music.
To conclude –my limited understanding so far is:
Living a moral life is the foundation layer.
The focus of Anapanasati should be about purifying mind rather than calming the mind through breathing meditation.
To sustain niramisa sukha and avoid going back to sensual desires, one needs to comprehend Annicca, Dukkha, and Anatta nature of life (which in turn helps live sustained moral life). This I understood from listening to the discourse but I don’t think I comprehend what it involves yet.
Also, I am no longer experiencing eye-tiredness or pain. However, I still do have some discomfort around eyes and head.