Eelco ten Have:
Still it got me wondering though. What i've come to understand from enlightenment, As far as one can understand such things without having experienced the first nanas or stream entry. the focus / attention is in the sensate experience of the here and now.
Long and short breathing cannot exist at the same time in one body can they? so thinking or understanding one is breathing short or long, must include the memory(past) to compare the current breath to the remembered one(or remembered impression of several to create a mental avarage of what is "normal").
In my experience and
my own take on the anapansati instructions, they are there to follow in order to master the art of fabricating the jhanas. The path (at least the one springing from the anapanasati instructions) is one of mastering the art of fabrication in order to learn the cause and effect processes (dependent origination) in order to learn how such fabrications come about and how their cessation comes about.
All your mental suffering is one form or other a fabrication/s of mind. You develop the means to fabricate conducive pleasant and then neutral fabrications (jhanas) that put a temporary halt to the shitty fabrications (5 hindrances). Once one masters the how and why of both the arising and ceasing of fabrications, dispassion for such fabrications gains a foot hold. This then leads to relinquishment of all such fabrications, pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. This leads to freedom from the unsatisfactory nature of fabrications i.e. all your mental dissatisfaction.
Being in the present moment is somewhat what happens when you learn the art of fabrication, but it isn't really the objective of learning the art of fabrication as far as I see it. Mastering the art of fabricating is the objective in order to see all the ins and outs of such mental overlays, their arising and cessation. As I see it, the anapansati instructions are for this reason.
Nick
Edited for clarity