In this paper I attempt to re-investigate，as an application of my "creative hermeneutics"，the multidimensional complexity and deep structure of the Awakening of Faith, in order to find a new way of critically inheriting and creatively developing the deep and profoundly comprehensive philosophical ideas of this important `Mahayana` treatise ( `sastra`). My creative hermeneutics consists of the following five hermeneutic levels or steps：(1) "What exactly did the author (or the text) say? " (the stage of textual criticism); (2) "What did the author intend or mean to say? "(the stage of dimentional，logical and contextual analyses); (3) "What could the author have said? "or "What could the author's sayings have implied? "(the stage of discovery of various possible implications of the text and hermeneutic approaches); (4) "What should the author have said? "or "What should the creative hermeneutican say on behalf of the author? "(the stage of discovery of the deeper structure of the text); and (5) "What must the author say now? "or "What must the creative hermeneutician do now，in order to carry out the unfinished philosophical task of the author? "(the stage of critical/ creative transcendence).
Based on the above hermeneutic method，I give a critical examination of the major textual critical studies thus far accomplished，and reach my own conclusion on the first hermeneutic level that, despite the fact that the problem of authorship still remains unresolved，the text (in two versions) has created little difficulty in so far as the question "What exactly did the author (or the text) say? "is concerned. On the second level，I find that there are in the text as many as fourteen "gates" (dimensions or aspects) inseparable from one another，namely，the (trans-metaphysical) gate of non-duality (or "true emptiness")，the (`prajno- logical`) gate of `paramartha/samvrti`，the (ontological) gate of "true forms" (or "wondrous manifestations")，the (cosmological) gate of dependent origination，the (metapsychological) gates of hsin/hsing (mind/nature)，the (psychological) gate of citta/ `vijnana` (mind/consciousness)，the (existential) gate of awakening/nonawakening，the samsaric gate of karmic consequences (reward/ retribution)，the (`nirvanic`) gate of ultimate enlightenment or salvation，the (dyanic) gate of spiritual self-cultivation，the (ethical) gate of bodhisattvic discipline (`sila/vinaya`)，the (psychotherapeutic) gate of spiritual healing，the (`upayic`) gate of transformational education，and the (temporo-historical) gate of responsive appropriateness. On the third level，we can find at least the following four major hermeneutic approaches to the text：the theory of dependent origination by means of tathagata garbha, the T'ien- t'ai's non-dualistic approach, the Japanese Tendai's theory of ori
