In the book, the end of time, by julian barbour, the interpertation of the absence of time in the equation of quantum gravity is taken literally.
That is our parallel to nirvana. The way time and change emerge is via looking at a subset of the universe, and run it relative to the rest of the universe. Thus, samsara exists when one does not completely understand dependent origination.
And since the difference is only in how one perceive it, then samsara is equal to nirvana. Even in physics, it has been recently shown that the mind can alter results of an quantum experiment.