Gaynor and Peter both had trouble with the image of cones. My aim here will just be to suggest a few possibilities. Since TSK is so rich in possibilities, there is no need to struggle with the cone analogy. But perhaps, as Rinpoche suggests, it opens some new ways of understanding space and time.
 If you think of a point as the point of origin (for a particular experience, a particular perception, etc.), how does the origin play its role as origin? How does something emerge from it. One answer is to say that the point expands in the form of a cone. The cone retains the structure of the point; that is, the ‘mouth’ of the cone is still a circle. The circle of the cone is empty, and in that sense too it is like the point, because ‘nothing’ is there.
 Now, you could also say that a point when it expands becomes a circle, or a sphere, rather than a cone. But the reason it makes sense to single out a cone has to do with our commitment to the linear unfolding of time. We do not expand in all directions at once; we expand in a linear way. So there the cone makes sense.
The linear commitment of time, when expressed in the form a cone, creates new possibilities, because it is not just one-dimensional. It is possible to trace along the sides of the cone, and also the space within the cone. Now we are closer to the ‘sacred dimensions’ that the book deals with. So the cone is an opening, but at the same time a restriction (this was a point already explored in the first book: see pp. 246-47). To go beyond this restriction, we have available the possibility of 16. See the illustrations in Dimensions, from pp. 241-256.
 As to Peter’s other question: why 16 rather than 4 or 64, the book makes clear that this is in some sense arbitrary (see pp. 4-5). I would say: four is too easy and 64 is too hard.
Jack
Hi Peter,
It sounds active and alive, which is the most important.
If I understand your question in the comment: appreciation and respect and all such things are of course positive. The difficulty comes with the I who wants to own them, to use them to support its position and its positions.
Best wishes,
Jack
I thank you for your comment/answer.
My understandings and not understandings are changing very much and I don´t understand these changings.
I detect, that much of the texts are too much for me, I leave much out of consideration. Some times I seem to understand a facet, but not the whole. Afterwards I am seeing this ashamed.
Your answers and explanations are very helpful for me. They are supporting my understanding, my asking and my confusion gets a personal opposite (?).
I don´t see/understand exactly: Is it the “I”, who gets appreciation/earns respect, and it feels “good”?
But there is warmth and Intimacy (I don´t find the right word) in your reactions. Thank you.