Andrew Ken:
I sometimes worry that the unfocused eyes is an incorrect way to practice, since that is what usually happens to my eyes when I am lost in thought. Though it is definitely possible to be present with the eyes in that mode.
I'm not an expert, but I think I can relate to your experience with that. I tend to do the same. When you automatically focus your eyesight when you make an effort to focus your attention to the breath (or something else), I guess there's nothing wrong with it. For me, I really wouldn't know how to make an effort to concentrate otherwise. I can make an effort there, focussing my eyesight, and my general concentration and alertness increases with that.
And although, as you notice, it is definitely possible to be present with the eyes unfocused, that is not always the case. Sometimes you make a concerted effort to focus your eyes in order to be more alert. Seems legit to me. Think of the simile of the lute. You have to find the right balance. When you get lost in thought, put on more effort to get focussed. When you get too strained, relax a bit, as long as you can still stay present and alert. Think of the simile of the lute that the Buddha gave. You are doing that automatically and quite successfully, as it seems. You must know the right balance.
I also sometimes worry that having focused eyes is an incorrect way to practice, but this gets very confusing, especially with noting practice, because (and especially if dhamma theory is true in that it is impossible to experience more than 1 sensation simultaneously as Daniel Ingram says on page 22 of MCTB ) that would mean that every second sensation I would have to note the visual field at the back of my eyelids, which is "always" there.
I'm also worrying now that all these years I've inadvertently been combining my breath practice with a look-at-closed-eyed-visual-practice, which would be embarrassing. But noticing the space in my eyelids seems inevitable, I don't know how the space behind ones eyes ever could unless one was having Fruition or perhaps are in a formless absorption.
I think you should not get too hung up on theory. It can be very confusing.
You do have success entering jhana or whatever state of good concentration. So if it works, you must be doing something quite right, no? If you can investigate it enough and figure out what it is, this kind of jhana, or that kind of jhana, maybe that can be reassuring and useful in some way. But maybe it's not so important after all. I don't know. It's all anicca, anatta, dhukkha, in the end. How you realize that, I don't know. Reach this and that kind of jhana to see it all collapse in the end, I really don't know. Or if you really want to see that, I really don't know.
I think with all the different techniques out there it's very easy to always think one is doing something wrong. This does not quite seem to fit with this kind of method, that does not fit with that kind of method. But some kind of natural wisdom has given you enough guidance to reach some state of high concentration it seems, whatever it is called. And that is the only real thing that you can count on in the end, and the way by which you got there, that should not be embarassing but an asset. You have to work from that and see how the things you read fit in there, not the other way around. At least that's what I think.