There will come a time when the best strategy will be to sit and endure the pain until it has completely passed. The beginner may experience an intense desire to sleep. Resist the temptation. The best remedy here is to Still, Calm, and Tranquilize the bodily mechanism. When sitting, do not concern yourself as to whether your eyes are open or shut.
Some methods recommend various places to put the attention.
Some recommend attention to breathing. Some recommend focusing on an object like a circle of earth or a bowl of water or a board with a hole in it, or a cut out circle with a view of a fire, or the wind blowing the leaves of a tree. It is not important where you focus on the breathing. It is a trick we are playing on the mind, saying focus on this and focus on that. It is easier to develop a high degree of concentration this way than to try to maintain concentration on one and only one point of focus.