Comparing Mahamudra and Dzogchen

IN MAHAMUDRA, you are introduced to mind and then you train with awareness. The practice is mixed with mind until reaching non-meditation. Then the practice is only rigpa, the ultimate view. In one-pointedness and simplicity, you exert lots of mental effort, through which fixation greatly reduces and obscurations are cast away. It is like peeling off different layers of corn; first one is peeled, then the next and the next. In Dzogchen, from the very beginning you are introduced to nonmeditation, nondistraction.

According to the words of Künkhyen Tsele Rinpoche, also called Tsele Natsok Rangdrol:

Mahamudra and Dzogchen
differ in words but not in meaning.
The only difference is that Mahamudra stresses mindfulness
while Dzogchen relaxes within awareness.

Mahamudra stresses mainly mindfulness. “Mindfulness” or “presence of mind” means to apply mindfulness or watchfulness, while Dzogchen relaxes into awareness; this is the mere difference. As it is said, “In Dzogchen the ultimate view is to relax into awareness,” which refers to nonfixation, nongrasping—[to remain] in the continuity of nongrasping. It is said in Mahamudra, “It is necessary to apply mindfulness.”

[In Mahamudra] you then train with appearances by utilizing which-ever of the six sense perceptions that occurs, without keeping or discarding. —Tsele Natsok Rangdrol

In Dzogchen you “train with awareness” and in Mahamudra you “train with appearances.” The meaning of training